Property Tax Lies

COP leaflets against tax
October 8 2009

COP deputy leader, Prakash Ramadhar, and party official Dr Navi Muradali at City Gate yesterday led party members to protest the Government’s planned hike in property tax by distributing leaflets titled, “Axe the tax — Leave my home alone!” A similar exercise was also conducted yesterday at the same time at Chaguanas, said Ramadhar. 

Back to the old law
February 24 2011

Hours after Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley broke news of the Government’s move to introduce and approve legislation to approve a new property tax bill, Legal Affairs Minister Prakash Ramadhar said he fully supported the initiative.

Ramadhar had been among the leading critics of the Property Taxes Bill introduced by the former PNM government in 2009. Ramadhar said it was not true to say that the Government was reintroducing the property tax. “The property tax which they (PNM) envisaged, we have removed that.”

Told that the new bill proposed a SEVEN-AND-A-HALF PER CENT RATE OF TAX  for residents as opposed to THREE PER CENT under the PNM bill, the Legal Affairs Minister said: “Well, I am saying that we are returning to what was there before, which the population had found comfort in and had found great fear in the legislation they brought. “That’s as simple as I could put it,” he insisted.

However, "what was there before" turns out to be more than 2X what was proposed by the former administration (which they opposed):

THE LANDS AND BUILDINGS TAXES ACT 2011 - "on every building the annual taxable value of which does not exceed twenty-four dollars an annual tax of ninety-six cents; and on every building the annual taxable value of which exceeds twenty-four dollars, AN ANNUAL TAX OF SEVEN AND ONE-HALF PER CENT of such taxable value"

Kamla Persad-Bissessar believed there weren't enough 'Indian' Judges in the Caribbean Court of Justice

Sent from my BlackBerry® device