House debates tax amnesty bill

THE House of Representatives sits on Monday from 1.30 pm at Tower D of the Port of Spain International Waterfront Centre to debate the Miscellaneous Provisions (Tax Amnesty, Pensions, Freedom of Information, National Insurance, Central Bank and Non-Profit Organisations (NPO) Bill, 2019 and the Miscellaneous Provisions (Financial Institutions, Securities and Insurance) Bill, 2019.

Both bills were laid in Parliament by Finance Minister Colm Imbert. The former proposes to provide a tax amnesty in relation to certain revenue laws. It also proposes to amend the Retiring Allowances (Legislative Service) Act, the President’s Emoluments Act, Prime Minister’s Pensions Act, Judges Salaries and Pensions Act, the Freedom of Information Act, National Insurance Act, the Central Bank Act, and the NPO Act, 2019.

Clause two of the bill proposes a tax amnesty that will consist of the waiver of penalties with respect to tax payable under a revenue law specified in the bill's schedule if the tax owed is paid between June 15 and September 15 or a longer period as prescribed by the minister. Clause seven of the bill seeks to amend the Freedom of Information Act to extend the period within which a public authority is required to inform an applicant of its decision in relation to a request for information. This period would be extended from 30 to 90 days. A public authority would, however, be required to obtain the approval of the Attorney General before refusing a request.

The AG would have 90 days to inform the public authority of his decision. The period during which a request is referred to the AG would not be included in the calculation of the 90-day period that the public authority must to inform the applicant of its decision. Former AG Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has claimed this could be an attempt to prevent the media and the public from accessing information from the Government.

The Central Bank Act will be amended under clause nine to require the bank to disclose information pertaining to its human resources, organisational structure and other employment-related information to the finance minister as the minister may request. Clause ten amends the NPO Act 2019 to remove the one year limit on extensions of the time by which an existing NPO is required to be registered. This will also allow the minister to extend the time by which an existing non-profit company is required to submit its anti-money laundering/control of financing of terrorism documents to the Registrar General.

The latter bill provides legislative measures to deal with proliferation financing. This is defined by the Financial Action Task Force as the act of providing funds or financial services which could be used for the manufacture, acquisition, possession, development, export, transshipment, brokering, stockpiling and transport of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.

Monday is also the second sitting of the House for June. This means the Prime Minister will field questions from the Opposition during Prime Minister's question time. On Tuesday, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi will open debate the Bail Amendment Bill 2019 in the Senate. The sitting begins at 10 am at Tower D. The purpose of the bill is to provide for the circumstances in which bail may be denied to a person who is charged with a listed offence that is punishable for a term of imprisonment of ten or more years.The bill was laid in the Senate on May 7. Parliament will be going on its scheduled mid-year recess at the end of this month.