Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The to­tal sum of prop­er­ty tax col­lect­ed as of May 2025 was $135.5 mil­lion, with funds dis­trib­uted to re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, the largest pay­ment of $23.2 mil­lion go­ing to the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

This was in­di­cat­ed by Plan­ning Min­is­ter Ken­ndey Swarats­ingh in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing queries by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi on prop­er­ty tax is­sues.

The tax was halt­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment when it en­tered of­fice. Yes­ter­day, pressed by Al-Rawi on whether the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue with the tax, Swarats­ingh re­it­er­at­ed that the tax had been elim­i­nat­ed.

On Al-Rawi’s oth­er queries about the de­tails of the tax al­ready paid, Swarats­ingh said the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple who paid prop­er­ty tax as at May 2 this year stood at 132,124.

For the same pe­ri­od, $135,534,838.81 was col­lect­ed. Swarats­ingh said the mon­ey col­lect­ed was ini­tial­ly de­posit­ed in­to au­tho­rised com­mer­cial bank ac­counts ac­cord­ing to Fi­nan­cial Reg­u­la­tions and sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the Ex­che­quer ac­count of the Cen­tral Bank.

He ex­plained the mon­ey was then dis­trib­uted to each of the 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions in Trinidad, as well as the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion had the largest to­tal prop­er­ty pay­ment of $23,231,032.10.

Oth­er cor­po­ra­tions re­ceived as fol­lows:

Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion – 4,616 to­tal prop­er­ty pay­ment count; to­tal pay­ment $3,957,841.67

Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion – 9,023; to­tal pay­ment $11,541,565.55

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 18,784; to­tal pay­ment $16,746,713.46

Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion – 11,447; to­tal pay­ment $16,926,756.31

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 4,343; to­tal pay­ment $1,691,415.40

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 9,955; to­tal pay­ment $10,882,002.53

Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion – 2,850; to­tal pay­ment $1,751,747

Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion – 3,351; to­tal pay­ment $4,374,784.24

Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 9,808; to­tal pay­ment $7,595,007.21

San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion – 7,965; to­tal pay­ment $11,313,210.28

San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 8,058; to­tal pay­ment $12,090,368.30

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – 6,266; to­tal pay­ment $3,349,259.90

Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion – 8,820; to­tal pay­ment $6,012,937.35

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly – 4,264; to­tal pay­ment $4,070,197.51