KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­firmed yes­ter­day that the new dead­line to pay prop­er­ty tax, is No­vem­ber 29, 2024. How­ev­er, many prop­er­ty own­ers are still com­plain­ing that the cost is too high to bear.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed some rev­enue of­fices yes­ter­day, there were vis­i­bly short­er lines, but some peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly pen­sion­ers, said they were still pained with hav­ing to pay hun­dreds and even thou­sands of dol­lars in prop­er­ty tax.

Speak­ing out­side the In­land Rev­enue di­vi­sion in Port-of-Spain, 73-year-old Dan Far­rell and his 66-year-old wife Mary, from Diego Mar­tin, said pay­ing $539 in prop­er­ty tax may not seem like much for some peo­ple, but for them, it will be a strug­gle.

Dan said, “I am a pen­sion­er. I find the cost is too high. We al­ready have high food costs. We have to pay lights, wa­ter and now look at the amount of mon­ey they are charg­ing you and it’s a year­ly thing... I ain’t want them throw­ing us on the street be­cause it seems as though that is their in­ten­tion if you can’t pay for it, they take away your home.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, Mary said, “We take what­ev­er lit­tle mon­ey we have, and we come and do it. It too high for poor peo­ple like us.”

At the Rev­enue of­fice in Tu­na­puna, Janelle Co­dring­ton said prop­er­ty tax for her fam­i­ly’s three-bed­room home in Champs Fleurs was more than $2,000.

And al­though there may be an ex­ten­sion to pay the fee, it doesn’t light­en her bur­den.

Co­dring­ton said, “An ex­ten­sion date doesn’t change the fact that you still have to pay it. You still have to pay... It’s ridicu­lous. I’m be­ing hon­est, it is ridicu­lous. But, I have to come and pay it un­til bet­ter could be done about it. We re­al­ly hope that they change it, and they stop with that be­cause you have to pay for too many things and every­thing ex­pen­sive at the end of the day. Why should we have to pay prop­er­ty tax? Why? Amongst every­thing else.”

Some peo­ple al­so com­plained that both of­fices in Port-of -Spain and Tu­na­puna were still on­ly ac­cept­ing cash or cheques and no linx.

Guardian Me­dia ob­served signs in­di­cat­ing “cash on­ly” and “no linx” at both of­fices.

As such, some peo­ple who want­ed to pay with their bank cards were turned away.

How­ev­er, Im­bert took to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day to say that this is what peo­ple pre­ferred.

Im­bert said, “On Au­gust 16 2024, we pub­lished the Na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial In­clu­sion Sur­vey Re­port 2023. This sur­vey con­firmed that 82 per cent of our cit­i­zens pre­fer to deal in cash, rather than on­line pay­ments, and 85 per cent do not have a cred­it card. So why is the me­dia de­mand­ing that all pay­ments be on­line? The irony is that while the leader of the Op­po­si­tion has de­clared that she is res­olute­ly op­posed to any tran­si­tion to cash­less pay­ments in T&T, be­cause in her mind this would com­pro­mise pri­vate bank­ing in­for­ma­tion, the UNC Op­po­si­tion Cou­va South MP is de­mand­ing on­line pay­ments!”

In par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Im­bert said a new prop­er­ty tax ex­ten­sion date would have been an­nounced yes­ter­day.

And by the end of Oc­to­ber, it is ex­pect­ed that the Board of In­land Rev­enue will be able to ac­cept pay­ments by Au­to­mat­ed Clear­ing House (ACH) bank trans­fer cred­it card.

But as he re­mained tightlipped on this as­pect yes­ter­day, some peo­ple said they aren’t tak­ing any chances.

Mal­oney Gar­dens res­i­dent Veetlin Butch­er said, “Peo­ple must feel they could take their time now be­cause of what he said, be­cause it’s not up to the 30th any­more. That’s prob­a­bly why it has such lit­tle bit of peo­ple. But, I de­cid­ed I’m still com­ing to­day be­cause I al­ways planned to come to­day. I just want to get it off my chest. It don’t mat­ter if you fuss, you still have to pay it.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Fi­nance Min­istry on this yes­ter­day but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.