RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion is again lob­by­ing for the pas­sage of key leg­is­la­tion which will al­low T&T to be­come com­pli­ant with the Glob­al Fo­rum on trans­paren­cy and ex­change of in­for­ma­tion for tax pur­pos­es.

Dur­ing a break­fast sem­i­nar held at Fun­splash Wa­ter­park in Debe, man­ag­er at Re­pub­lic Bank Amar Ram­lo­gan said the sem­i­nar was part of the BATT’s strat­e­gy to lob­by for the pas­sage of the leg­is­la­tion.

This in­cludes the In­come Tax (Amend­ment) Bill 2019, the Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance in Tax Mat­ters Bill (2018) and the Tax In­for­ma­tion Ex­change Agree­ment (TIEA) Bill 2018.

Ram­lo­gan said this leg­is­la­tion has been tabled in Par­lia­ment but is yet to be de­bat­ed or passed.

He said T&T is cur­rent­ly deemed non com­pli­ant by the Glob­al Fo­rum be­cause of ab­sent leg­is­la­tion.

If the pieces of leg­is­la­tion are passed and en­act­ed, Ram­lo­gan said a peer re­view will be­gin and T&T could pos­si­bly get a new rat­ing.

If this does not hap­pen, Ram­lo­gan ex­plained that T&T will re­main black­list­ed. “The coun­try will earn the rep­u­ta­tion of be­ing a tax haven,” he warned.

Ram­lo­gan said this will have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the econ­o­my.

“Not hav­ing these stan­dards will af­fect the na­tion’s econ­o­my as it in­creas­es T&T’s sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to in­stances of fi­nan­cial fraud and fi­nanc­ing of ter­ror­ism. Gov­ern­ment rev­enues are erod­ed as a re­sult of tax avoid­ance and tax eva­sion. There will be dif­fi­cul­ty for for­eign firms to en­gage in busi­ness re­la­tions and in­vest­ments do­mes­ti­cal­ly,” he said.

Ram­lo­gan said any busi­ness with wire trans­fers and cred­it card pay­ments that trade fi­nance will im­pact the lo­cal econ­o­my and busi­ness­es in T&T.

“Be­cause what is hap­pen­ing in cor­re­spond­ing re­la­tion­ships is they are ap­ply­ing en­hanced mea­sures in terms of re­view­ing the wires so we will see wires tak­ing longer time to go out and it will af­fect our sup­pli­er in terms of pay­ing and mak­ing pur­chas­es on­line like in Ama­zon,” he added.

Ram­lo­gan said they planned to com­plete all meet­ings with stake­hold­ers by the end of March.

So far the BATT has met with the Hote­liers As­so­ci­a­tion, Em­ploy­ee Con­sul­ta­tive as­so­ci­a­tion and Pe­nal Debe Cham­ber

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Cham­ber Ram­per­sad Sieu­raj said T&T’s econ­o­my will take a neg­a­tive hit be­cause of price shocks and the ex­ter­nal oil war be­tween Rus­sia and Sau­di Ara­bia. Sieu­raj said the COVID-19 virus was al­so im­pact­ing on the economies of the world. He said T&T does not seem ca­pa­ble of deal­ing with the fall­out of the virus not­ing that avail­abil­i­ty of gener­ic drugs will al­so be­come af­fect­ed be­cause of a hold on ex­ports com­ing out of Chi­na. Sieu­raj called on the gov­ern­ment to make a state­ment on the way for­ward.