REPRIEVE
Property tax bills on hold until Minister settles special cases
Ria TaittPolitical Editor
Tuesday, April 6th 2010
No property owner will receive bills until the Government settles the issue of all those who qualify for deferment of the payment of the tax, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira confirmed last night.
Asked whether no bills will go out, she said: ’Not yet.’
Pressed further on whether property owners would have to pay the old rate or would not have to pay anything until they receive bills, she said property owners would have to pay nothing until they receive bills. ’From January of this year the new rate came into effect. But we want to deal with certain policy issues before it is implemented,’ she said.
’That is why no bill has gone out, because the Cabinet and Government have taken that position,’ the Minister told the Express in a telephone interview.
One issue which has to be settled, the Minister said, relates to the question of the deferment on the payment of taxes owing to financial hardship. The other issue relates to the question of preparing the Rent Assessment Board. Noting that the Property Tax Amendment Act has implications for the Rent Assessment Board, Nunez-Tesheira said the question of treating with unscrupulous landlords, who may want to take advantage of the ’insignificant increases’ in property tax to institute unreasonable increases in rent, has to be addressed. She noted that some ’harmonisation’ between the Rent Assessment Board and her Ministry would have to take place. Rental properties constitute a significant percentage of the national housing stock.
FINANCE MINISTER: Karen Nunez-Tesheira
On the issue of the deferment, Nunez-Tesheira pointed that under the old act, there was only provision for exemption from taxes, and there was no recognition of economic hardship.
The new act, which was passed late last year, makes provision for deferment on the basis of economic hardship.
But she said ’in looking at the classification of persons who would benefit from this provision it is not as easy, as it may appear on the face of it to make it (the Act) implementable. We have been doing a lot of work and looking at other jurisdictions to see how they have treated with it. And it is in that context that if you send out the bills, persons who would qualify for deferment would not benefit, if we were to send out the bills right now’.
Nunez-Tesheira said her Ministry was currently liaising with the Ministry of Social Development, which would be responsible for handing out the certificates of deferment to eligible persons. She said Government wants to do the deferment exercise up front so that it could capture home owners who qualify for it and not have people who are eligible (for deferment) receiving property tax bills.
’It is an exercise that we started with the Ministry of Social Development. We are working with them because they would be responsible for the certificates. We are in active engagement with them and we are looking at seeing how we can implement something which would address some of the concerns that we have heard, and we have started that process,’ she said.
On the Rent Assessment Board, Nunez-Tesheira said the Minister of Legal Affairs had raised some issues and had prepared a policy document.
’We are working with him,’ she said.
She added that the Government wanted to ensure that before bills are sent out, people who stand to benefit can do so and not have to face any difficulties.
The purpose of the Rent Assessment Board was to assess the rent chargeable for properties. And it offered protection to tenants who face unreasonable rent increases.
The Minister said while the sending out of the bills has been delayed, the Government did not anticipate that it would have to extend the penalty period (for non-payment) beyond the current deadline -December 31, 2010. She said if it becomes necessary to do so, it would be done.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/nart?id=161622726hmmmm they hold back on the RATT and now the land tax. Wait til after elections.
