My budget wish list

GEORGE ELIAS

SEPTEMBER 26 has been declared Budget Day. Ahead of that day, and in the interest of starting meaningful conversations at a national level, I am sharing with readers my wish list for the coming year.

1. Access for the differently abled: Offer financial incentives to business places to provide access to wheelchair-bound customers, as well as improve access to their onsite facilities and their suite of products and services. They could be as simple as providing ramps and wheelchair accessible restrooms. But they can also include conversion of documents to Braille and provision of sign language services.

2. Employment opportunities for the differently abled: Offer of tax breaks to companies that employ differently abled workers. I am always reminded that Tony Roma's during its very short stint here in Trinidad hired hearing-impaired busboys to clear tables at its restaurants. Perhaps this can be done as a pilot project, with a view to possibly restructuring how grants are paid out to this under-utilised segment.

3. National pride: Now that we have celebrated our 60th anniversary of independence, offer tax breaks to businesses that use the occasion as a show of national pride. Specifically, should a business place decide to repaint its premises in national colours, or paint a patriotic mural on its sidewalls, it should receive a tax break in a vein similar to the cultural one in operation now, ie, a write-off of 150 per cent of the cost.

4. Local content: We've been talking around this for years, but the advances in the recording process has now made this as practical as it is imperative. Across all genres of music, we have local artistes struggling for recognition and appreciation. A mandatory 25 per cent local content quota for all radio stations would not only prove to be a boon to their creativity, but it would also create real economic value that the country can benefit from.

5. Import substitution: Provide economic incentives to local food processors/manufacturers to replace imported inputs with locally sourced ones. And target a 25 per cent reduction in the import of these inputs by 2027. Naturally, this would have the effect of reducing demand for foreign exchange by 25 pert cent.

6. National apprenticeship programme: Provide a tax break for manufacturing companies that create and maintain an apprenticeship programme for recent school-leavers. The programme must provide consistent employment for a minimum period of one year. If 150 manufacturers each offered employment to on average ten school-leavers, it would create opportunities for 1,500 school leavers each year.

7. Clear the judicial backlog: Direct and resource the judiciary to operate on a 24/7 basis until its criminal and civil case backlogs are eliminated.

8. Clear the customs backlog: As with the delivery of justice, do the same with Customs and Excise, with a special priority to be placed on food imports. Operate 24/7 and in a measured and managed approach to rid the country of this unnecessary backlog.

9. Revenue Authority: Bring the Revenue Authority into operation and aggressively pursue as much of the estimated $7 billion in uncollected taxes as we can bring into the Treasury. The revenue collection focus must begin here.

10. Diaspora bonds: Target the very large and economically powerful group of TT-born people who now work and live in other countries in a low-yield US-dollar bond issue. With a diaspora population of over a million, we should be able to raise US$1 billion in hard currency that can be used for economic and infrastructural strengthening. It’s a good way to raise funding for general improvements and it can also help to improve our foreign exchange supply.

11. Eliminate the gap between buying and selling rates on foreign currencies. The spread between the two rates (for cash it can be as much as 13 per cent) acts as a disincentive to both public and corporate citizens to remit foreign exchange to the banking system. We must find ways to make the system more equitable and beneficial to the customer. As it stands, even people with US-dollar accounts find it challenging to access their funds when necessary.

12. Make the “unbankables” bankable: Too many of our citizens are being excluded from the financial system. Surely there are ways to include people who earn $5,000 and less each month and to monitor their transactions for any activity that is beyond the credible threshold for that level of income?

13. Introduce the property tax: But please do so in a manner that is consistent with the least amount of disruption and discomfort. For example, make an option of it being paid in monthly payments. And that payment can be done online or via the existing banking system, much like a utility bill.

14. Launch the housing bond and National Investment Fund 2.

15. Water tank tax incentive: In an effort to improve access to water, provide a tax incentive to homeowners who do not own water storage tanks and pumps so they can receive some relief for having to invest in this upgrade.

16. Housing application reform: Discontinue the lottery system as it tends to be unfair to applicants who have been in the system for a longer period of time. Immediate priority and attention need to be paid to applications that are ten years and older. The HDC should immediately launch an audit of those older applications to determine which are still active and to classify according to need and ability to meet the mortgage requirements. Based on that “sanitised” list, then a random draw could be conducted to allocate homes. Beyond this, the process should be repeated for applications in the five-ten-year range.

That, for now, is my two cents. What say you, TT?