Parliament votes to repeal TTRA Act

THE Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (Repeal) Bill, 2025, was passed in the House of Representatives on June 14, effectively dismantling the authority and bringing tax collection back under the purview of the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) and the Customs and Excise Division.

Introduced by Minister of Finance Davendranath Tancoo, the bill was passed with 27 votes for, 11 votes against and no abstentions after 1 am.

During his opening contribution, Tancoo pointed out the motion was a promised made by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on the 2025 general election campaign trail being fulfilled.

He believed the most responsible solution to outstanding challenges faced by the BIR and Customs and Excise was to strengthen and properly resource the organisations rather than dismantle the BIR.

He said the TTRA breached constitutional and human rights, allowed for executive overreach and political interference in tax collection and eroded the independence of the Public Service Commission.

Tancoo spoke of a Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (Tadat) report which was conducted by an independent team in 2017, in which strengths and weaknesses of the BIR were pointed out. Some weakness included staff shortages, the integrity of the tax administration database was low, limited use of electronic services for filing and payment and the inefficient VAT refund process.

Former finance minister Colm Imbert responded in his contribution, saying the assessment happened 18 months after the People’s National Movement (PNM) came into government. He pointed out the low scores the BIR received in numerous categories, saying the problems were profound and structural.

“The only possibility of improving revenue collection in this country was with a semi-autonomous revenue authority. Various administrations have tried to deal with the chronic inefficiencies in Customs and Inland Revenue for the past 50 years.

“There is nothing that tells the population that this particular minister, this particular administration, would have the political will or have the capacity to deal with the problems in the Inland Revenue and Customs using the existing system.”

Tancoo went on to say, in 2017, the number of approved staff positions in the BIR was 1,316 but almost half were vacant. And instead of fixing the weaknesses in the organisation, the PNM sidestepped the issues, created the TTRA and deliberately deprived the BIR of income and resources.

In response, Imbert called the UNC hypocrites as, when it was in government, it made similar decisions to by abolishing the Postal Division with the passing of the TT Postal Corporation Act, and the Civil Aviation Division by passing the Civil Aviation Authority Act.

Referring to a Privy Council case decision he said, “The Privy Council upheld the right of a government, in this case it was the UNC government, to abolish a public service division, create a statutory authority and give the public servants these three options.”

Imbert said with the TTRA, workers were given the identical options given with TTPost and the Civil Aviation Authority – voluntary retirement, transfer to the statutory body or remain in the public service.

Tancoo also said only 32.6 per cent of public servants employed at the BIR and Customs opted to move to the TTRA, but that depletion in staff resulted in a decrease in revenue collection.

However, giving the numbers, Imbert said there were 1,268 officers at BIR and Customs. As of January 2025, 40 took voluntary retirement, 443 transferred to the mainstream Authority, 191 transferred to the Enforcement Division of the Authority, 284 chose to remain in public service and 310 did not respond. That meant 50 per cent chose to work at the Authority.

Tancoo added that Imbert often spoke of a $10 billion tax gap due to non-compliance, evasion and administrative shortcomings.

“But while he’s complaining about a tax gap, every action taken by that government is to widen that tax gap, because they have deliberately undermined the agency responsible for pursuing tax evaders, that is the BIR.”

Tancoo also said between financial year 2016 and 2025, $12.8 million was used to establish the TTRA, $1 million was spent per month and $3.6 million was still outstanding for services rendered.

He suggested the money could have been used to improve the human resources and infrastructure at BIR, on more scanners for Customs, on software upgrades to make customs and tax processes more efficient.

The government, had decided to rebuild and reinforce the existing framework of the BIR as well as properly equip and resource it.

Attempts to contact Public Services Association president Felisha Thomas for a comment on the passing of the bill were unsuccessful.