Kamla: Did Imbert create new tax break for himself?

DID Finance Minister Colm Imbert implement an income tax exemption on multi-family dwellings to benefit himself?

This was the question posed by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar during her budget response response in the House on Friday.

She recalled in 2016 the minister amended the Income Tax Act to allow for income tax exemptions for multi-family dwelling properties.

"Why? Take a drive down Picton Street and you will see the highest, most posh building going up. One of the biggest 'multi-family dwellings' you will see in the entire country! Who owns it?"

She said when this exemption was brought to the Parliament in 2016, Imbert knew that in 2014, Belgrave Properties Ltd, of which he was a director, had submitted to the Town and Country Planning Division an application to construct a luxury multi-family dwelling, known as The Allora, on Picton Street, Port of Spain.

"The construction of these units would have started after 2016."

She questioned whether the Finance Minister recused himself in this matter as his Cabinet colleagues Faris Al-Rawi and Stuart Young have done on multiple occasions.

"Taxing vehicles, taxing tyres, taxing apples and grapes, but exempting himself," she charged.

Persad-Bissessar pointed out that in the 2020/2021 budget the minister announced Government proposed to amend the Corporation Tax Act, to allow approved property development companies to claim as a deduction 20 per cent, up from the present 15 per cent, of the capital expenditure incurred in the construction of commercial, industrial or multi-family residential buildings completed on or before December 31, 2024.

She said the minister knows that the current section 16 of the Corporation Tax Act allows for exemptions only with respect to commercial and industrial buildings.

"What he now proposes, with this new amendment, is to increase the tax exemption from 15 per cent to 20 per cent. Is this to include the multi-family residential buildings that the minister owns in the exemption?"

She said the Opposition has always advocated for lower taxes across the board for every single citizen.

"But his self-serving actions concerning tax breaks on his properties again shows how this PNM government governs. They will never do something for the good of the people of TT unless they are first assured that they themselves will benefit. This is a historical hallmark of PNM policy and politics."