Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo on Fri­day pi­lot­ed two bills in Par­lia­ment aimed at bol­ster­ing T&T’s fight against fi­nan­cial crime and cor­rup­tion: the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (FATF Com­pli­ance) Bill, 2025, and the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Bill, 2025.

The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill will, for the first time, grant the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) in­ves­tiga­tive pow­ers to probe tax-re­lat­ed of­fences. It will al­so crim­i­nalise a wider range of mis­con­duct, in­clud­ing de­pri­va­tion of state rev­enue, bribery in pub­lic pro­cure­ment, bribery of for­eign of­fi­cials, and em­bez­zle­ment of pub­lic re­sources.

“Tax evaders and those us­ing tax struc­tures to laun­der mon­ey or fi­nance ter­ror­ism will now face greater risk of de­tec­tion and pros­e­cu­tion, as the BIR will op­er­ate more like a law en­force­ment body in fi­nan­cial crime mat­ters,” Tan­coo told Par­lia­ment.

Both bills car­ry heavy penal­ties: life­time im­pris­on­ment for ter­ror­ism-re­lat­ed of­fences un­der the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill, and $5 mil­lion fines plus up to five years in prison un­der the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Bill.

Tan­coo said the leg­is­la­tion is nec­es­sary to meet T&T’s oblig­a­tions un­der the Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF). The coun­try is prepar­ing for FATF’s fifth-round on­site mu­tu­al eval­u­a­tion in March 2026, fol­low­ing the fourth-round re­view, which iden­ti­fied strate­gic de­fi­cien­cies in T&T’s an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and counter-ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing (AML/CFT) regime.

“The fifth-round eval­u­a­tion will rig­or­ous­ly as­sess how ef­fec­tive­ly T&T com­plies with glob­al stan­dards on AML/CFT and counter-pro­lif­er­a­tion fi­nanc­ing,” Tan­coo ex­plained.

He out­lined ar­eas re­quir­ing con­tin­ued ac­tion:

En­hanc­ing in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

Im­prov­ing trans­paren­cy and ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship mea­sures.

Strength­en­ing leg­isla­tive frame­works for pros­e­cut­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing cas­es.

Im­prov­ing trac­ing and con­fis­ca­tion of crim­i­nal pro­ceeds.

Pri­ori­tis­ing pros­e­cu­tion of ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing cas­es.

Im­ple­ment­ing tar­get­ed fi­nan­cial sanc­tions and mon­i­tor­ing non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions.

De­vel­op­ing frame­works to counter pro­lif­er­a­tion fi­nanc­ing.

New pow­ers for the BIR

The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill will amend 13 ex­ist­ing laws to give the BIR ex­plic­it au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate tax-re­lat­ed of­fences, rather than mere­ly as­sess­ing re­turns and col­lect­ing rev­enue.

“This is a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment in our le­gal frame­work,” Tan­coo said. “When FATF ex­am­in­ers ar­rive, we can demon­strate that our tax au­thor­i­ty isn’t a pas­sive ad­min­is­tra­tor, but an ac­tive en­forcer with­in the AML/CFT frame­work.”

Un­der the new pow­ers, the BIR will be able to:

Ex­er­cise au­thor­i­ty un­der the In­come Tax Act and oth­er laws.

Take and record state­ments from tax­pay­ers, em­ploy­ees, and agents.

Re­quire pro­duc­tion of books, records, and doc­u­ments.

Co­op­er­ate with law en­force­ment and com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ties.

The bill al­so strength­ens the state’s abil­i­ty to tack­le mon­ey laun­der­ing pred­i­cat­ed on tax crimes and clos­es loop­holes that pre­vi­ous­ly al­lowed of­fend­ers to with­hold in­for­ma­tion. In­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion will be en­hanced to ad­dress tax eva­sion, mon­ey laun­der­ing, and ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing.

“Tax eva­sion robs the State of much-need­ed rev­enue, un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence in the fair­ness of the tax sys­tem, and pro­vides fer­tile ground for broad­er crim­i­nal schemes,” Tan­coo said.

“Those who laun­der pro­ceeds of crime of­ten dis­guise their ac­tiv­i­ty through fraud­u­lent fil­ings, off­shore arrange­ments, and shell com­pa­nies. By em­pow­er­ing the BIR, we’re equip­ping the State to pro­tect the Trea­sury.”

On oth­er pro­vi­sions of the bill, Tan­coo high­light­ed mea­sures crim­i­nal­is­ing bribery in pub­lic pro­cure­ment and em­bez­zle­ment of pub­lic re­sources.

“T&T must nev­er again find it­self in the po­si­tion we were in over the last few years, when the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, and oth­ers sound­ed the alarm,” he said. “Bil­lions of tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars were spent il­le­gal­ly on projects no one could ver­i­fy.”

He added that the bills es­tab­lish a ro­bust leg­isla­tive frame­work to ad­dress crime, cross-bor­der ac­tiv­i­ties, and white-col­lar of­fences that have al­ready cost the na­tion bil­lions and af­fect­ed thou­sands of lives. “We promised the peo­ple we’d tack­le these is­sues. With these bills, that promise is kept,” Tan­coo said.

FATF Com­pli­ance Bill strength­ens counter-ter­ror­ism frame­work (Put in box)

The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (FATF Com­pli­ance) Bill, 2025 in­tro­duces tougher penal­ties, in­clud­ing life im­pris­on­ment and mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar fines for ter­ror­ism-re­lat­ed of­fences, while clos­ing ma­jor leg­isla­tive gaps and op­er­a­tional­is­ing T&T’s oblig­a­tions un­der sev­en key Unit­ed Na­tions counter-ter­ror­ism con­ven­tions.

“The bill al­so strength­ens na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty through full align­ment with FATF stan­dards,” Tan­coo told Par­lia­ment.

He ex­plained that amend­ments to the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act and its reg­u­la­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hance the coun­try’s counter-ter­ror­ism frame­work by ex­pand­ing the de­f­i­n­i­tion of prop­er­ty to in­clude vir­tu­al as­sets and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed per­sons.

The leg­is­la­tion al­so cre­ates new of­fences, such as the pro­hi­bi­tion of un­marked plas­tic ex­plo­sives and the unau­tho­rised ac­qui­si­tion of nu­clear ma­te­r­i­al, re­in­forc­ing T&T’s com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions.

Oth­er changes in­clude:

Strength­ened as­set-freez­ing and tar­get­ed sanc­tions regimes.

Ex­pand­ed pow­ers for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

New re­port­ing du­ties for fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and list­ed busi­ness­es, sup­port­ed by a tiered ad­min­is­tra­tive fines frame­work.

The bill al­so up­dates mul­ti­ple laws, in­clud­ing:

Trustees Or­di­nance (Chap. 4 of 1939)

Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act (Chap. 11:11)

Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act (Chap. 11:24)

Pro­ceeds of Crime Act (Chap. 11:27)

Po­lice Ser­vice Act (Chap. 15:01)

Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go Act (Chap. 72:01)

In­come Tax Act (Chap. 75:01)

Com­pa­nies Act (Chap. 81:01)

Part­ner­ship Act (Chap. 81:02)

Reg­is­tra­tion of Busi­ness Names Act (Chap. 82:85)

Se­cu­ri­ties Act (Chap. 83:02)

Non-Prof­it Or­gan­i­sa­tions Act (No. 7 of 2019)

Ac­cord­ing to Tan­coo, these up­dates will mod­ernise T&T’s le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, en­abling au­thor­i­ties to tack­le ter­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing, mon­ey laun­der­ing, and re­lat­ed fi­nan­cial crimes more ef­fec­tive­ly while demon­strat­ing full com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.