Revisiting Trinidad and Tobago Property Tax Reform

January 15, 2010 by admin

With Trinbagonians distracted with the upcoming Carnival, Beyonce and now Haiti, the new Property Tax seems all but forgotten.

It probably helps that the new costs will be sent out after Carnival, so I expect that when people get their new taxation after the 31st of March, the fallout will begin.

That said, I went digging for information. On Facebook, since time was not on my side, a few friends pointed me in the right direction to get the actual acts involved (to save you the trouble, I attached the files below). I read over them. I read what the Ministry of Finance website has about the Property Tax Reform. The data it has is very close to the data sent out by the Ministry of Finance prior to the Act being passed - with agricultural rates increased from 1% to 2% in the Amendment (mr5F5507.pdf, below, page 11). Thus what the Opposition to the Property Tax effectively did was raised the tax for farmers - and the Ministry of Finance site has not been updated.

In essence, Opposition managed to screw farmers with their saber rattling.

All of that being said, the valuation of the property remains a big question mark.

The Amendment refers to the Valuation of Land Act, Chapter 58:03 that is not the Property Tax Reform. And Sections 6 and 7 of the Valuation of Land Act (last link) as made in the Amendment (mr5F5507.pdf, below, page 6) states:

7. The Act is amended by repealing sections 6 and 7
and substituting the following section:
6. (1) Every owner of land in Trinidad
and Tobago shall, by April 1, 2010, make
with the Commissioner, a return of the
land in the form set out in Schedule II.
(2) Where the owner of land fails to
file a return by April 1, 2010 the
Commissioner shall by Notice inform the
owner that he is required to file a return,
failing which he may be liable to conviction
under this section.
(3) A Notice under subsection (2)
shall be sent by registered post.
(4) A person who willfully—
(a) fails to make a return within
the prescribed time under
subsection (1); or
(b) makes a return which is defective
or incomplete or which is
to his knowledge false in any
material particular,
commits an offence and is liable on
summary conviction to a fine of five
hundred dollars.”

Oh. Well, how is the public to know about this form? I suppose they may send out forms, but... the form itself is to be found within the same document ((mr5F5507.pdf, below, page 11).

Bottom Line: Fill out the form and send it in by April Fool's Day.

And that, you see, is how they expect to do the valuation. There has been talk of teams going house to house doing actual valuations, but it seems that the Act now requires land owners to report on their own land.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

I expect I'll have more on this as I wander through the minefield.

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