The Institute of Surveyors’ of Trinidad & Tobago held its ‘Land Policy for Sustainable Development‘ conference at UWI on 22-23 March 2023. Afra Raymond delivered the keynote address on Wednesday, 22 March 2023 on “Planning and Development.”
Afra Raymond participated in this Property Tax webinar on Tuesday, 26 July 2022 for the Henley Business School, Caribbean Alumni Chapter. “Considering the current Property Tax situation, ambiguity of the transition from the Land and Building System to the new system, we have taken the opportunity to provide clarity to our Alumni community and invited participants to make informed decisions.”
Afra Raymond was interviewed by Satesh Mahabir on Property Tax on the Morning Panchayat show on Aakash Vani 106.5 FM on 16th February, 2022. UNC Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial was the other guest on the programme.
Afra Raymond is interviewed by Jason Williams on The Morning Brew on CNC3 TV on the topic of property tax in light of the impending roll out of the updated taxation regime. Video courtesy CNC3 Television.
The T&T Guardian newspaper interviewed Afra Raymond on the issue of the new property tax regime and its re-introduction into the country. Following is the article with the series of Q&As with Editor/Journalist Debra Wanser for the article, published on Sunday, Sep 19 2021. Click here to read the complete article on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian website
The Government collected $143 million in 2009, the year that the old Property Taxes ended.
The current estimates of the Property Tax to be collected are to the tune of $504 million annually, so that is about three-and-a-half times more than what property owners paid in 2009, according to Afra Raymond, chartered surveyor and managing director of Raymond & Pierre Limited.
The revenue lost over the last 12 years since the axing of the tax could be more than $5.50 billion, Raymond estimated.
Raymond, a past president of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC), said the move to implement the Property Tax would be widely unpopular at a time of many burning issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the existing socio-economic situations.
Raymond believes that with only a slim parliamentary majority, the introduction of the new Property Tax will be a considerable gamble for the Government.
T&T is getting set to reintroduce Property Tax as one of the revenue streams which is expected to bring in millions of dollars for the Treasury.
While there is no specific date given for the rollout, the Government has started laying the foundation. They are attempting to populate the valuation roll. The Government has put out advertisements calling on citizens to file information on property and land ownership with the Valuations Division, Ministry of Finance (MOF). If citizens fail to do so by the end of November 2021, they can face a fine of $5,000.
With this move, Property Tax can be levied on residential and commercial properties and agricultural lands.
Raymond felt that the objections from the Opposition United National Congress elements are bemusing, to say the least. This, he said, is for two reasons–”Firstly, the official record of tax collections from 1993 to 2009 as shown in the graph and table below. When the UNC was in power in the seven-year period 1995-2001, there was a dramatic and unexplained decline in the collections of Land & Building Taxes, which are collected in the non-municipal areas. That decline was reversed when the UNC left office. The table and chart give the details, based on my research in the official records of the Ministry of Finance.
“Secondly, the People’s Partnership (PP) used ‘Axe the Tax’ as a strong slogan in the 2010 general election which they won with 29 out of 41 seats. With that rare three-fifths majority in hand, there was tremendous scope for the PP to have lawfully changed or removed any laws or arrangements it wished, without any need for PNM support. Like the Property Tax, for instance. But that never happened, for whatever reason.”
You are of the view that the revision of the property tax is long overdue, can you elaborate on the need for this, please.
Yes, Property Tax is long overdue. The last time Property Tax was collected in T&T was in 2009, so 2022–which is next year, which is what is under discussion–would make that a total of 12 years that no taxes were paid by property owners. By any measure, that is a tremendous benefit that has been enjoyed by property owners. In the previous taxation system, the property taxes were called House Rates for the five Municipalities and Land & Building Taxes for the other parts of the country. The five municipalities are Port-of-Spain, San Fernando, Arima, Point Fortin and Chaguanas.
Afra Raymond was interviewed by Richard Ragoobarsingh and Senator Paul Richards on Power 102FM’s Power Breakfast Show on Property Tax, soon to be implemented in Trinidad and Tobago. Audio courtesy Power 102 FM
In this article I continue to examine the PPPs in Tobago against the role of the responsible elites or officials for these important matters.
Before returning to those large-scale, misbegotten PPP schemes, it is important to give the background in terms of learning and the institutional framework.
The Finance Ministry’s PPP Unit was established in August 2011, to promote public private partnerships for infrastructure in Trinidad and Tobago. The National PPP Policy was approved by Cabinet on May 31, 2012, as an institutional framework for the development and implementation of projects through the PPP modality. Continue reading “Property Matters – More Tobago Love”
Tobago Love n.
Trinidad & Tobago
1. The act of beating one’s partner to prove one’s love…from TriniMummy.com [Via http://www.skettel.com/ an online Caribbean dictionary.]
This article uses the threads I have been exploring in relation to the two large-scale Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Tobago to discuss the risks which are likely to arise quite soon in that arena.
The case will be made in three parts – the existing two PPPs, with a note on the Tobago Sandals MoU fiasco; the emerging arrangements for new PPPs in Tobago and the perils arising from the failure or refusal to examine the failed PPPs.
This 198-room hotel was built in 2000 on the Tobago Plantations estate by Vanguard Holdings, which comprised Guardian Holdings, Angostura Ltd and the T&T State via e Teck, with Hilton International having a minor shareholding. The project was financed with a $16.75M USD bond from Citicorp and was soon in difficulty, as in 2008 the State had to bail-out the private shareholders and commit large sums of Public Money to repair the buildings, which were by then badly-damaged by sea-blast.
Continue reading “Property Matters – Tobago Love”
Afra Raymond made a presentation at the 4th Caribbean International Tourism Conference at UWI’s Cave Hill Campus in Barbados on Trinidad & Tobago’s State-owned hotels to outline the results and provisional conclusions of his research examining the existing State-owned hotels as a way of understanding the real prospects for the large-scale Tobago Sandals proposed by the incumbent government in 2015.
‘Manufactured consent’ is supported by “…effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion…“.
—Noam Chomsky
This article is based on notes for my presentation today to the Fourth Caribbean International Tourism Conference (CITC 2019) at UWI’s Cave Hill campus. My presentation will be on Trinidad & Tobago’s State-owned hotels to outline the results and provisional conclusions of my research. I designed that research program to examine the existing State-owned hotels as a way of understanding the real prospects for the large-scale Tobago Sandals being proposed by the current government in 2015.
I am questioning the role of our responsible elites in light of Dr Terrence Farrell’s ‘Where do we go from here‘ speech to the Queen’s Park Cricket Club on 22 November 2019. Dr Farrell also chaired a THA-appointed Committee to recommend a Medium-Term Policy and Planning Framework for Tobago. Those proposals were made on 12 November 2019 and included three new all-inclusive hotels for Tobago adding about 1,800 new rooms. Continue reading “Property Matters – State owned hotels”
AfraRaymond.net 