GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment’s ne­go­ti­a­tions re­gard­ing pub­lic ser­vants’ salaries will be­gin at 10 per cent, mo­torists be­gan pay­ing $1 less for Su­per gas yes­ter­day - but Cus­toms du­ties on rum and spir­its, beer and cig­a­rettes in­creased yes­ter­day as well.

And next year NIS con­tri­bu­tions will be in­creased, land­lords will pay Gov­ern­ment a sur­charge and com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al prop­er­ties will al­so pay an elec­tric­i­ty “sur­charge.”

Com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies will al­so have to pay a 0.25 per cent levy on their as­sets.

These were among the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion’s first Bud­get pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

“Bud­get 2026 is a de­c­la­ra­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go is back on course ... When UNC wins, every­body wins!” Tan­coo de­clared of his pack­age, which com­prised a bal­ance of perks for some sec­tors and penal­ties for oth­ers.

Tan­coo spoke for three hours and 15 min­utes in de­liv­er­ing a $59.232 bil­lion pack­age - slight­ly small­er than the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s $59.741B for 2025.

His de­liv­ery was punc­tu­at­ed by loud desk thump­ing and an “Every­body wins!” cho­rus from his Gov­ern­ment col­leagues, who gave him a stand­ing ova­tion on con­clu­sion. His Bud­get theme was “T&T First: Build­ing Eco­nom­ic Fair­ness through Ac­count­able Fis­cal Poli­cies.” Rev­enue is pro­ject­ed at $55.367B and the fis­cal deficit is es­ti­mat­ed at $3.865B - less than the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s 2025 Bud­get.

Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing re­ceived top dol­lar among al­lo­ca­tions $ 8.766B.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­ceived $2.96 bil­lion. Tan­coo said a fur­ther $763 mil­lion will al­so be spent by var­i­ous min­istries on To­ba­go. “In to­tal, then, the al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go for fis­cal 2026 will be $3.724 bil­lion, which equates to 6.3 per cent of the Na­tion­al Bud­get,” Tan­coo added

The Bud­get was pegged on an oil price of US$73.25 per bar­rel (com­pared with US$77.80 per bar­rel in 2025) and nat­ur­al gas price of US$4.25 per MMB­tu (com­pared with US$3.59 per MMB­tu in 2025).

”This 2026 Bud­get is a re­align­ment of ob­jec­tives to­wards a Trinidad and To­ba­go-first pol­i­cy,” Tan­coo added.

Gov­ern­ment adopt­ed the UNC 2025 Man­i­festo as of­fi­cial Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy to guide ini­tia­tives that will be im­ple­ment­ed in the next five years.

More in your pock­et

An­nounc­ing a re­duc­tion of the Su­per gas price, Tan­coo said, “The then Fi­nance min­is­ter gloat­ed and sneered that be­cause cit­i­zens hadn’t ri­ot­ed yet, he could raise the price of gas again. And he did again and again and again.

“While cit­i­zens suf­fered in pain and frus­tra­tion as the cost of liv­ing sky­rock­et­ed, the PNM in gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to pile pres­sure on the backs of those least able to bear it ... the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment has been un­fair­ly over­charg­ing cit­i­zens for Su­per gaso­line.

“In our bid to build eco­nom­ic fair­ness, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­struct­ed that, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, the price of Su­per gaso­line at the gas sta­tion pump be re­duced by $1 per litre.”

“The av­er­age fu­el tank ca­pac­i­ty is about 50 litres ... every time you fill your tank you’d be sav­ing $50 thanks to this re­duc­tion! When UNC wins, every­body wins!”Tan­coo added. On out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Tan­coo said, “Af­ter nine long years of stag­na­tion, we’re com­mit­ted to fi­nal­ly bring­ing all par­ties back to the bar­gain­ing ta­ble to ad­dress this long-over­due in­jus­tice.

“On com­ple­tion of the bar­gain­ing process, we’ll work with Re­pub­lic, First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board to find a com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tion to dis­charge this na­tion­al oblig­a­tion.

“In fur­ther­ance of the con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Civ­il Ser­vice, Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed me to ad­vise the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to sub­mit a re­vised of­fer of 10 per cent - Promise made, promise kept! Be­cause, when UNC wins, pub­lic ser­vants win!!”

He said Gov­ern­ment will rat­i­fy col­lec­tive agree­ments signed in April 2025 be­tween the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and unions for the Teach­ing Ser­vice, De­fence Force and Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tions. Tan­coo said the re­cur­rent cost of im­ple­ment­ing these agree­ments is es­ti­mat­ed at $214 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, with ar­rears of $730 mil­lion as of De­cem­ber 2025.

Among his 26 fis­cal mea­sures, Val­ue-Added Tax on food items- from ta­ble salt, to lo­cal­ly pro­duced veg­eta­bles - will be re­duced from Fri­day.

NIS con­tri­bu­tions up, re­tire­ment age ad­just­ment

Af­ter the 11th Ac­tu­ar­i­al Re­view pro­ject­ed the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Fund would be de­plet­ed by 2033 if noth­ing is was done, Tan­coo said, “We will not al­low the fund to col­lapse... this Gov­ern­ment will act de­ci­sive­ly where the PNM re­fused to act! To save this crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion from bank­rupt­cy and pre­serve ben­e­fits for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, we must in­crease the con­tri­bu­tion rate.”

To min­imise bur­den on con­trib­u­tors, Tan­coo pro­posed a phased ap­proach: im­ple­ment­ing a three per cent in­crease in the con­tri­bu­tion rate ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 5, 2026, fol­lowed by an­oth­er three per cent in­crease from Jan­u­ary 4, 2027.

He al­so an­nounced a grad­ual ad­just­ment to the re­tire­ment age for a full NIS pen­sion

“Be­gin­ning Jan­u­ary 2028, the age at which a per­son can re­ceive a full NIS re­tire­ment pen­sion will grad­u­al­ly in­crease over a 10-year pe­ri­od. There will be no change for any­one who re­tires at age 60 be­fore Jan­u­ary 1st, 2028.

“These re­tirees will con­tin­ue to qual­i­fy for a full NIS pen­sion (with a min­i­mum of $3,000) at age 60. Fur­ther­more, ex­ist­ing pen­sion­ers will not be af­fect­ed by this change.”

Start­ing in Jan­u­ary 2028, the age for a full NIS pen­sion will in­crease by one year every two years un­til it reach­es age 65 in 2036.

“This means that to ac­cess the full min­i­mum pen­sion of $3,000:

• From Jan­u­ary 1, 2028, to De­cem­ber 31, 2029, a re­tiree must be 61 years of age;

• From Jan­u­ary 1, 2030, to De­cem­ber 31, 2031, a re­tiree must be 62 years of age;

• From Jan­u­ary 1, 2032, to De­cem­ber 31, 2033, a re­tiree must be 63 years of age;

• From Jan­u­ary 1, 2034, to De­cem­ber 31, 2035, a re­tiree must be 64 years of age; and

• From Jan­u­ary 1, 2036 on­ward, a re­tiree must be 65 years of age.”

“These ad­just­ments mean that the re­tire­ment age for a full NIS pen­sion will move from 60 to 65 over the next decade. Per­sons who re­tire ear­ly will still re­ceive a pen­sion, but at a re­duced rate,” Tan­coo added.

Land­lord busi­ness, elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge

On the land­lord sur­charge start­ing Jan­u­ary 1, Tan­coo said, “In re­cent times, there has been an ex­plo­sion of un­reg­is­tered com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial rental prop­er­ties. Many of these land­lords have been avoid­ing pay­ing their fair share of tax­es. This con­tributes to sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue loss and a lack of re­li­able da­ta to sup­port pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment.

“In­tro­duc­tion of this Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge, based on ac­tu­al rental in­come - not ghost rental fee-, will broad­en the tax rev­enue base, pro­mot­ing fair­ness, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. This mea­sure re­quires all land­lords to reg­is­ter with the Board of In­land Rev­enue and pay a one-time reg­is­tra­tion fee of $2,500.”

The land­lord sur­charge will be ap­plied as fol­lows: (i) 2.5 per cent of the gross an­nu­al rental in­come of $20,000.00 or less; and (ii)3.5 per cent of the gross an­nu­al rental in­come ex­ceed­ing $20,000.

The elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge for com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers - not res­i­den­tial - will take the form of a fixed, bill-lev­el charge of $0.05 per kWh. On the As­set Sur­charged for banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, Tan­coo said due to their large size, prof­itabil­i­ty and cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion, these en­ti­ties have re­port­ed sus­tained earn­ings, high liq­uid­i­ty ra­tios and strong as­set base growth.   

“Con­ser­v­a­tive lend­ing prac­tices and favourable mon­e­tary con­di­tions have dri­ven these out­comes. De­spite this, the av­er­age cit­i­zen con­tin­ues to be sub­ject­ed to un­rea­son­ably high fees and near-ze­ro re­turns on their sav­ings and in­vest­ments,” he said.

This mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to con­tribute $575 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to rev­enues. The levy will not be ap­plied to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Act.

CEPEP, URP $, sin­gle moth­ers’ hous­ing

In keep­ing with Gov­ern­ment’s cam­paign, pri­vate pen­sions will be ex­empt­ed from in­come tax on Jan­u­ary 1, Tan­coo added.

He al­so said Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to end­ing the state fund­ing of crim­i­nal gangs by elim­i­nat­ing the CEPEP and URP pro­grammes and re­plac­ing them with pro­vid­ing full-time, bet­ter-paid jobs.

“I have es­tab­lished an Em­ploy­ment Fund in the Fi­nance Min­istry with $475 mil­lion, which will be utilised, to­geth­er with the $310 mil­lion in the Un­em­ploy­ment Fund, for job cre­ation.”

Among Hous­ing plans, Tan­coo said the Foun­da­tion-for-Life Pro­gramme will help sin­gle moth­ers and se­niors with rent-to-own op­tions, while in­clu­sive hous­ing at Ed­in­burgh 500 will serve per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

VAT re­view

Tan­coo said Gov­ern­ment in­tends re­view­ing the ex­ist­ing VAT regime “and, if fea­si­ble, re­place it with a sim­pli­fied, more ef­fi­cient sales tax ap­plied at the fi­nal point of trans­ac­tion.”

Gov­ern­ment will al­so clear the back­log of VAT re­funds and close out­stand­ing ar­rears.

Tan­coo al­so an­nounced that the aban­doned Ca­roni Rac­ing Com­plex will be con­vert­ed to a world-class con­ven­tion cen­tre with as­sis­tance from the TT Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA)

Tan­coo said, “T&T’s eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty have been giv­en a sig­nif­i­cant boost with the re­cent US sup­port for the Drag­on gas pro­pos­al. We’ll be ex­plor­ing every av­enue to ad­vance this project.”

He thanked US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion for as­sis­tance.

Bud­get Al­lo­ca­tions

• Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing: $8.766B

• Health: $8.214B

• Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty: $6.366B

• Pub­lic Util­i­ties: $3.395B

• In­fra­struc­ture: $1.943B

• Rur­al De­vel­op­ment & Lo­cal Govt:

$1.807B

• Trans­port: $1.840B

• Agri­cul­ture: $1.130B

• Hous­ing: $0.662B

OTH­ER JAN­U­ARY 1 FIS­CAL MEA­SURES IN­CLUDE

* 0.25 per cent Levy on As­sets of Com­mer­cial Banks and In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies

* Penal­ties on of­fences, in­clud­ing ap­pli­ca­tion for reg­is­tra­tion of a pes­ti­cide, from $2,000 to $4,000

* Dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a dri­ving per­mit - $5,000

* Care­less dri­ving - $15,000

* Dri­ving or be­ing in charge of a ve­hi­cle while blood al­co­hol lev­els ex­ceed pre­scribed lim­it - $15,000

* Sub­sidy on Liqui­fied Pe­tro­le­um Gas-cylin­ders of 100 pounds and above by $0.50 per pound. The price of cylin­ders be­low 100 pounds, in­clud­ing the stan­dard 20-pound cylin­ders, will con­tin­ue to be sub­sidised at the same rate.

* In­crease in the per­mis­si­ble age of im­por­ta­tion of pri­vate cars (SU­Vs, Sedans and Sta­tion Wag­ons) which are pow­ered by gaso­line, diesel or CNG from three years and un­der, to six years and un­der, from the date of man­u­fac­ture; and (ii)an in­crease in the per­mis­si­ble age of im­por­ta­tion of light com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles (pick­ups and pan­el vans) from sev­en years and un­der, to ten years and un­der, from the date of man­u­fac­ture.

* Pe­ri­od Pover­ty In­ter­ven­tion fund­ing for a pi­lot pro­gramme to pro­vide dis­tri­b­u­tion of free men­stru­al kits in ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions; and ed­u­ca­tion and sen­si­ti­sa­tion on men­stru­al health for var­i­ous groups—in­clud­ing men and boys—to fos­ter in­clu­siv­i­ty and dis­man­tle stig­ma. Tax in­cen­tives will be pro­vid­ed to en­cour­age in­di­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions to con­tribute.

* In­creased con­tain­er pro­cess­ing fees $525, $1,050 Cus­toms De­c­la­ra­tion Trans­ac­tion User Fee En­vi­ron­men­tal Tyre Tax and on Wild An­i­mals and Birds.

* Cus­toms Du­ties on Lux­u­ry Elec­tric Cars - tiered rate of Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Tax ap­plic­a­ble to the Elec­tric Mo­tor Size will be ap­plied on ve­hi­cles whose CIF val­ue ex­ceeds $400,000.

* Five per cent tax on CIF val­ues of Sin­gle-Use Plas­tics which con­tribute heav­i­ly to clogged wa­ter­ways, land and ma­rine pol­lu­tion.

* Es­tab­lish­ment of a Re­al Es­tate In­vest­ment Trust where high-val­ue in­come-gen­er­at­ing prop­er­ties such as land, of­fice build­ings and com­mer­cial in­fra­struc­ture will be trans­ferred in­to a pro­fes­sion­al­ly man­aged RE­IT. Shares will be list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change

* The Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIF) will launch a $1 bil­lion NIF Bond in the sec­ond quar­ter of Fis­cal 2026.

* Re­moval of Mo­tor-Ve­hi­cle Tax Con­ces­sions for re­turn­ing na­tion­als af­ter the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit re­port on the fraud and abuse of this con­ces­sion.

* $10m Re­search and De­vel­op­ment Im­pact Fund (UWI) for re­searchers and in­no­va­tors to fo­cus on cli­mate re­silience, cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and health in­no­va­tion.

* $15m Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion and In­cu­ba­tor Pro­gramme to strength­en the in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

* eL­E­VATE Pro­gramme to up­skill 15,000 ed­u­ca­tors, help­ing them in­cor­po­rate and mod­ernise their teach­ing method­olo­gies us­ing 21st-cen­tu­ry tech­nol­o­gy.

* NEXTCLASS pro­gramme to cre­ate an AI-pow­ered user in­ter­face plat­form that em­pow­ers teach­ers with the re­sources to en­hance their teach­ing ef­fec­tive­ness and fos­ter a more per­son­alised learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

* PEARL Project: Pro­mot­ing ear­ly uni­ver­sal screen­ing in schools for chil­dren to en­sure that chal­lenges in vi­sion, hear­ing, growth, and de­vel­op­ment are de­tect­ed and ad­dressed be­fore they be­come bar­ri­ers to learn­ing.

* Tax con­ces­sion for cor­po­rate and in­di­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions to reg­is­tered an­i­mal shel­ters.

* Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tives - re­moval of VAT on items for the sec­tor.

*Re­duc­tion on the cost of con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als.