Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said on Wednes­day that four Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment bod­ies in Trinidad could col­lect up to $198 mil­lion in prop­er­ty tax­es a year when all prop­er­ties in those cor­po­ra­tions have been val­ued us­ing the an­nu­al rental val­u­a­tion method­ol­o­gy.

Im­bert told Par­lia­ment: “Based on prop­er­ties that have al­ready been reg­is­tered, I can say that the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion of Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, when all res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties have been val­ued, will be in re­ceipt of $44 mil­lion.

“The Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion of Pe­nal/Debe, when all prop­er­ties in that re­gion have been val­ued and tax­es paid, will get $35 mil­lion a year.

“The Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion of Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, be­ing one of the more pop­u­lat­ed cor­po­ra­tions, will get $67 mil­lion a year.

“The Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas is es­ti­mat­ed to get $52 mil­lion from prop­er­ty tax.”

He said the mon­ey the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions col­lect is not “chick­feed or peanuts,” but a sub­stan­tial rev­enue stream that the lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies will use to pro­vide ser­vices such as garbage col­lec­tion and drain clean­ing.

Im­bert was speak­ing on Wednes­day night on the Val­u­a­tion of Land (Amend­ment) Bill, 2023, which seeks to amend the prop­er­ty tax law that is about to be rolled out in T&T.

Im­bert said he re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion from staff in the Val­u­a­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Fi­nance who were mon­i­tor­ing the de­bate and did cal­cu­la­tions based on in­for­ma­tion al­ready avail­able to them. The in­for­ma­tion is based on prop­er­ties that have al­ready been reg­is­tered.

The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance said in or­der to gen­er­ate the sums of mon­ey he out­lined, the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions will have to do the work of col­lect­ing the tax from prop­er­ty own­ers in their dis­tricts.

“This tax is lo­cal at the purest lev­el. The tax is col­lect­ed by the cor­po­ra­tions. It is re­tained by the cor­po­ra­tions and spent by the cor­po­ra­tions,” said Im­bert, adding that if the Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas did its work, by en­sur­ing that all of the res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties in the bor­ough are val­ued, then they are in line to col­lect $52 mil­lion a year.

Im­bert said based on all avail­able da­ta, the num­ber of prop­er­ties in T&T is es­ti­mat­ed at about 600,000. He said that num­ber is based on in­for­ma­tion from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), TTPOST, as well as aer­i­al pho­tographs and da­ta col­lect­ed from the pre­vi­ous Land and Build­ing tax regime.

Based on da­ta from T&TEC, re­cent­ly ac­quired, Im­bert said it is es­ti­mat­ed that there are about 400,000 res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties in T&T.

He point­ed out that the Val­u­a­tion Di­vi­sion had digi­tised 536,876 prop­er­ties in Trinidad and 33,665 prop­er­ties in To­ba­go for a to­tal digi­ti­sa­tion of the out­lines of build­ing in T&T of 570,541 prop­er­ties.

Im­bert said that in the 2021/2022 ex­er­cise to col­lect in­for­ma­tion on prop­er­ties, the Gov­ern­ment was able to source in­for­ma­tion on a to­tal of 186,000 prop­er­ties, about 136,000 of which were res­i­den­tial.

Added to prop­er­ty records that were in place from a sim­i­lar ex­er­cise in 2017 and oth­er records, Im­bert said the Val­u­a­tion Di­vi­sion in­formed him that it had passed the 50 per cent thresh­old some time ago.

He said the cur­rent num­ber of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties that are ready for the prop­er­ty roll is 232,000.

Im­bert said in at least 100 coun­tries around the world, the an­nu­al rental val­ue is the tried, test­ed and es­tab­lished method of val­u­a­tion for prop­er­ty tax as­sess­ment.

“In the Caribbean alone, eight of 13 coun­tries that im­pose prop­er­ty tax use the an­nu­al rental val­ue,” said the min­is­ter.