Sunday, September 5 2010

The People’s Partnership coalition during the election campaign promised to repeal the tax legislation. On April 19, 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, then the outgoing Opposition leader, said at a rally at St Helena: “There shall not be one cent collected by a UNC government for property tax. We will roll back that tax and wipe it from the law books.”After Persad-Bissessar was voted in as Prime Minister, her new Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, on June 1, 2010, said a bill repealing the property tax was to possibly be among the first presented by the new administration.

Such a bill, however, is yet to be tabled in Parliament, amidst claims by some that the State may have little choice but to introduce a new regime of property tax, even if by another name, given economic realities and the need for legal reform. To date, the Government has only placed a motion to deal with the procurement of public property on the Order Paper, calling for the establishment of a Joint Select Committee to examine the issue, among other things.

Dookeran yesterday maintained the tradition of being tight-lipped on the measures contained in the Budget, but sources close to him revealed that a number of initiatives aimed at stimulating trade, including reforms of the process by which title for land is managed, are expected to be touched upon by the Budget.

“The Minister of Finance will be making reference to those in his presentation and it will be elaborated on in the Budget debate,” one source told Sunday Newsday. “He will look at a number of things including: tax incentives and tax holidays, waivers on duty on equipment coming into the country, the issue of free zone status, issues relating to land to lease.”

Another source said, “There are a number initiatives that are ongoing to really simplify the application for approvals for various areas of industry in order to improve our competitiveness by short-circuiting a lot of the approvals red-tape.”

Government officials also indicated this week that Dookeran could take action to bolster the funding for State regulating bodies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Authority and Agency (OSHAA) in the upcoming fiscal period.

Sources yesterday indicated that the measures introduced to stimulate trade will also aim to attract new industries to this country. However, these measures will be sensitive to environmental issues. “We don’t want industries that are going to create major environmental issues,” the source said.

Other pressing issues are also expected to be addressed in the Budget, including the status of large-scale projects from the last administration which have been placed in limbo. These include: the controversial aluminium smelter plant proposed for south Trinidad, a billion-dollar plastics plant and the controversial billion-dollar “Rapid Rail” project which was put on hold at one stage by Tesheira.