Imbert: Property tax exposes unjust enrichment

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert says much of the pushback against the property tax comes from people trying to hide their acts of unjust enrichment.

He was speaking on March 26 at a session of Conversations with the Prime Minister at Exodus panyard at Tunapuna, headed by Dr Rowley.

He said he was wondering about the rejection of property tax, as the sums payable would typically be about $400 a year.

"It can't be the property tax. That can't be the reason for all this bacchanal. It has to be something else."

Imbert said certain people cannot explain their wealth, such as employees in modest jobs but who own ten or 20 houses.

He said while a person working in a professional capacity could hide their taxable earnings – such as by refusing to give receipts – the beauty of property tax was that no one could hide a house.

"That is what the opposition to property tax is all about," he claimed. "It has to be 'unjust enrichment' and 'explain your wealth.'"

Imbert otherwise said the Government would put a support system in place for poor individuals to challenge the property valuations on which their property tax is based. He said it would work like legal aid, helping individuals at the lower end and using a means test to qualify.

He then said how hard it was for the Government to seek $4.5 billion monthly to pay its bills, retorting to opposition calls of: "Where the money gone?"

Rowley said the property tax was a progressive tax which grew in relation to one's earnings.

He said just as income tax was a "pay as you earn" system, the property tax was based on "pay as you own."

Someone in a mansion was deemed able to pay more than one living in a shack, the Prime Minister said.

On tenants' fears of landlords seeking to pass on their property tax bills to them, he said an upset tenant might move out and cost the landlord two months' lost rent worth $6,000 just because the latter had not wished to pay $800 in property tax.

The Prime Minister promised to run a mass media campaign on radio and television for the public to understand the property tax.

Rowley repeatedly urged the public to keep themselves genuinely informed of current happenings.

By way of example, he expressed a deep concern that his opponents could use artificial intelligence (AI) to falsely portray him "audibly and visually," and so manipulate his image to say whatever they wished.

"Even I have to say, 'Is that me?'" he said.

Chiding the Opposition for asking earlier in the Senate if the Government has a team within the police service, Rowley said those questions were posed by the same people who had given data on Trinidad and Tobago citizens to Cambridge Analytica.

"You need to be an informed population. Where are you getting your truth from?"

Saying former UNC leader the late Basdeo Panday had once said an opposition's job was not to make a government look good, the PM said UNC politicians were now unduly claiming his government was corrupt.

"There is no corrupt Government in Trinidad and Tobago at this time."

He challenged anyone to present proof of the government's being involved in any scandal, saying it had deliberately set out to not be corrupt.

Saying he pays $15,000 a month in tax on his salary as Prime Minister, he lamented that some people would believe the narrative his earnings were tax-free.

"You have to inform yourself," he urged.