The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has wel­comed last week’s an­nounce­ment by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert re­gard­ing the is­suance of val­ue added tax (VAT) bonds.

Last week, Min­is­ter Im­bert said in the Sen­ate, that the Gov­ern­ment owed $7.8 bil­lion in VAT re­funds as at March 31, 2023. He said the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to is­sue bonds worth $3 bil­lion to de­fray some of the ar­rears owed to busi­ness­peo­ple. He al­so said the Gov­ern­ment would is­sue cash re­funds for VAT ar­rears of be­tween $1 bil­lion and $2 bil­lion. The pay­ments would be made be­tween June and Au­gust, said Im­bert.

Pres­i­dent of the TTMA Roger Roach said he hoped the pay­ments would be prompt.

“The TTMA is pleased with the an­nounce­ment in the Sen­ate by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Fi­nance re­gard­ing the is­suance of VAT bonds with a pro­ject­ed pay­out be­tween June to Au­gust 2023. We al­so look for­ward to the cash pay­ments of up to $2 bil­lion and hope that spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to SMEs and that these pay­ments are made in the short­est pos­si­ble time frame,” said Roach.

The TTMA had con­stant­ly been call­ing for the out­stand­ing pay­ments to be set­tled, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, as both Roach and his pre­de­ces­sor Tri­cia Coos­al not­ed the funds would be cru­cial for the re­cov­ery of the busi­ness sec­tor.

Roach how­ev­er stressed that tax sys­tem should be prop­er­ly re­vamped to en­sure there is no back­log.

“The TTMA con­tin­ues to col­lab­o­rate with the gov­ern­ment by rec­om­mend­ing so­lu­tions to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty and growth of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and we note the eco­nom­ic, ad­min­is­tra­tive and com­pli­ance is­sues out­lined by the min­is­ter. This cer­tain­ly high­lights the need to re­design the sys­tem and ar­rive at a long term so­lu­tion to this peren­ni­al is­sue,” he said.

“A work­ing val­ue added tax sys­tem will, when com­bined with oth­er mech­a­nisms, make it eas­i­er to do busi­ness, build con­fi­dence and fos­ter an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for the pri­vate sec­tor to in­vest and grow. The TTMA stands ready to work with the gov­ern­ment in this re­gard.”

Roach al­so said there would be ad­van­tages for the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment if the Gov­ern­ment were to im­ple­ment a work­ing VAT regime.

“A work­ing val­ue added tax sys­tem will, when com­bined with oth­er mech­a­nisms, make it eas­i­er to do busi­ness, build con­fi­dence and fos­ter an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for the pri­vate sec­tor to in­vest and grows,” the new TTMA pres­i­dent said.

In the mean­time, Roach said the man­u­fac­tur­ers will con­tin­ue their col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Gov­ern­ment and state agen­cies to achieve re­sults.