Property Tax in Trinidad & Tobago

[The_Honourable]

Would not be against it but i'm pretty sure government will raise taxes somewhere to recoup that loss of revenue per year.

[pugboy]

That is the problem, there is no accountability of monies used.
It is different pockets of the same pants being worn.

Note imps still ain't put in a proper casino tax regulation scheme after 5 years of ol talk
Man just don't want to touch the 1%

[88sins]

well, an increase in some other type of tax to "recover" what "revenue" they not getting from it would still be acceptable to a large degree.

ppl with limited income wouldn't be at risk of losing their homes, and nobody would be a tenant of the state even after spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to buy or build their own homes and not depending on the state for housing.

[ProtonPowder]

I would be against it because of the indirect effects.

No property tax= no incentive for a central property database or database of real property or register of deeds. Both these things being worked on at present to tie into the same purpose. Next time you buying land and wondering why the title search taking so long, give this a thought.

When you realise that TnT's global rank in land registry's robustness is 151st in the world, out of 187, you might realise that this was an attempt in the right direction.
http://www.instituteofsurveyors.com/ow/blogs/2

[88sins]

I would be against it because of the indirect effects.

[u]No property tax= no incentive for a central property database or database of real property or register of deeds. ]Both these things being worked on at present to tie into the same purpose. Next time you buying land and wondering why the title search taking so long, give this a thought.[/u

When you realise that TnT's global rank in land registry's robustness is 151st in the world, out of 187, you might realise that this was an attempt in the right direction.
http://www.instituteofsurveyors.com/ow/blogs/2

you saying that the tens and hundreds of thousand of dollars in stamp duty ppl does be paying to transfer properties, ISN'T an incentive to keep a central property database? This, as opposed to the proposed minimum $480/year they might board ppl for in property tax? Where you get that idea? So when a man buying a property & he gets hit with a stamp duty fee of $250K, what exactly he paying that for? just for paying it sake? Property tax here is just a way for crooked politicians to bleed more out of ppl pockets in the long run, for doing basically nothing. Simple as that. Because come hell or high water, if they were to implement it and collect it in full for the next decade, we'd still be going through the exact same kaka we going through today. It will be diverted elsewhere,and not gonna benefit the property or it's community in any way.
When they first proposed this, the talk was that collected taxes would go to the go to fund the regional corporations for the areas where they were paid & other local gov't bodies in those areas, so that those organizations need not lean so hard on the central govt for funding to operate. You remember that? That was one of the main selling points to justify this property tax, claiming it would then free up monies that could be better used elsewhere, & it was the primary reasons for all the yappage about 'local govt reform' some years back. Notice not a soul h even whispering anything about 'local gov't reform' lately?
The low ranking of our local land registry has less to do with property taxes & more to do with ppl failing to transfer properties in a timely manner, errors wrt dimensions as well as on documentation such as deeds & cadastral sheets hat occurred over time, among several other factors.

As regards title searches, long is a subjective term eh. Some take months, others take weeks, & others take days. & theres multiple reasons for this that have absolutely nothing to do with property tax. One of which is so many deeds that were hand written and are now so old that they in a condition where the writings on them are barely discernible, some pages torn, & yet even others missing. Another reason being lazy search clerks, (btw, there's times when a lil motivation goes a long way). Another reason being so many racket deeds being registered, so one property would appear to have multiple individual owners at the same time, creating chaos, so each has to be back tracked & the original source documents found & followed from there. & there still more, but I've already made my point.

But all that aside, if it were up to me. I personally would dispose of property tax altogether. yes, they go come up with some other hare brained idea to fleece the populace. but at the very least, when a person spends hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to buy or build a property, they won't be a tenant of the state and at the mercy of a merciless wrinkle faced albino minion

[zoom rader]

Proton, only wants to secure his goverment job. He probably being paid by PNM for PR on tuner like all the rest .

[ProtonPowder]

I would be against it because of the indirect effects.

[u]No property tax= no incentive for a central property database or database of real property or register of deeds. ]Both these things being worked on at present to tie into the same purpose. Next time you buying land and wondering why the title search taking so long, give this a thought.[/u

When you realise that TnT's global rank in land registry's robustness is 151st in the world, out of 187, you might realise that this was an attempt in the right direction.
http://www.instituteofsurveyors.com/ow/blogs/2

you saying that the tens and hundreds of thousand of dollars in stamp duty ppl does be paying to transfer properties, ISN'T an incentive to keep a central property database? This, as opposed to the proposed minimum $480/year they might board ppl for in property tax? Where you get that idea? So when a man buying a property & he gets hit with a stamp duty fee of $250K, what exactly he paying that for? just for paying it sake? Property tax here is just a way for crooked politicians to bleed more out of ppl pockets in the long run, for doing basically nothing. Simple as that. Because come hell or high water, if they were to implement it and collect it in full for the next decade, we'd still be going through the exact same kaka we going through today. It will be diverted elsewhere,and not gonna benefit the property or it's community in any way.
When they first proposed this, the talk was that collected taxes would go to the go to fund the regional corporations for the areas where they were paid & other local gov't bodies in those areas, so that those organizations need not lean so hard on the central govt for funding to operate. You remember that? That was one of the main selling points to justify this property tax, claiming it would then free up monies that could be better used elsewhere, & it was the primary reasons for all the yappage about 'local govt reform' some years back. Notice not a soul h even whispering anything about 'local gov't reform' lately?
The low ranking of our local land registry has less to do with property taxes & more to do with ppl failing to transfer properties in a timely manner, errors wrt dimensions as well as on documentation such as deeds & cadastral sheets hat occurred over time, among several other factors.

As regards title searches, long is a subjective term eh. Some take months, others take weeks, & others take days. & theres multiple reasons for this that have absolutely nothing to do with property tax. One of which is so many deeds that were hand written and are now so old that they in a condition where the writings on them are barely discernible, some pages torn, & yet even others missing. Another reason being lazy search clerks, (btw, there's times when a lil motivation goes a long way). Another reason being so many racket deeds being registered, so one property would appear to have multiple individual owners at the same time, creating chaos, so each has to be back tracked & the original source documents found & followed from there. & there still more, but I've already made my point.

But all that aside, if it were up to me. I personally would dispose of property tax altogether. yes, they go come up with some other hare brained idea to fleece the populace. but at the very least, when a person spends hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to buy or build a property, they won't be a tenant of the state and at the mercy of a merciless wrinkle faced albino minion

Stamp duty is a tax levied on the transfer of interest in land, while property tax is levied based on possession of interest in land.

One requires updating at set intervals, and one requires updating only when an event occurs.

[88sins]

stamp duty is not based solely on the value of the land, but the definition you used is technically correct.
in any regard, allyuh remember when this property tax catastrophe was initially being discussed? do you recall during that time how every 6 seconds some politician kept yapping about "local government reform", and about how this new tax regime would be used to fund the regional corporations so they would be less dependant on central government funding? Notice, it's been years since any of them even whispered anything similar to what they were so passionate about when they were pushing this new tax regime.

this is not an accident, nor is it a coincidence.

[De Dragon]

well, an increase in some other type of tax to "recover" what "revenue" they not getting from it would still be acceptable to a large degree.

ppl with limited income wouldn't be at risk of losing their homes, and nobody would be a tenant of the state even after spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to buy or build their own homes and not depending on the state for housing.

After so many years in power, and abject failures like Sandals, you'd think there would be some learning taking place with respect to accountability and transparency with taxpayer funds. Things like garbage collection, roadway maintenance etc. have to be funded somehow, and IF the property tax could be seen to be doing so, then people like me would have no issue with it. You cannot expect me to entrust proven failures at managing an economy with my tax money into a Consolidated Fund, and "hope" or "trust" them to not steal it, or mismanage it.

[ProtonPowder]

stamp duty is not based solely on the value of the land, but the definition you used is technically correct.
in any regard, allyuh remember when this property tax catastrophe was initially being discussed? do you recall during that time how every 6 seconds some politician kept yapping about "local government reform", and about how this new tax regime would be used to fund the regional corporations so they would be less dependant on central government funding? Notice, it's been years since any of them even whispered anything similar to what they were so passionate about when they were pushing this new tax regime.

this is not an accident, nor is it a coincidence.

They quiet because it is for now, a lost cause, and the property tax rearing its head in the courts again to be heard on appeal. I always remind people that this is what cost the pnm the election in 2010 and as stupid as they seem, they are not stupid enough to harp on at length about it to remind people of that.

[88sins]

no matter what clown inbutt or chief toolum head say, let us all as grown adults be honest
nobody wants to risk losing what they worked hard to acquire for an opportunity to pay for getting nothing positive in return. & nobody anywhere ever actually wants to pay more taxes. & this is particularly true when they live on modest incomes and are fully well aware that for their additional tax dollars they will continue to see it being piddled away and not used to benefit them in any way, or that their tax dollars will be used to reduce taxation of corporations & the uber rich.

they hoping ppl forget, & they think not talking about it will allow them & their bs to slide under the radar. That eh go wuk tho.

[De Dragon]

no matter what clown inbutt or chief toolum head say, let us all as grown adults be honest
nobody wants to risk losing what they worked hard to acquire for an opportunity to pay for getting nothing positive in return. & nobody anywhere ever actually wants to pay more taxes. & this is particularly true when they live on modest incomes and are fully well aware that for their additional tax dollars they will continue to see it being piddled away and not used to benefit them in any way, or that their tax dollars will be used to reduce taxation of corporations & the uber rich.

they hoping ppl forget, & they think not talking about it will allow them & their bs to slide under the radar. That eh go wuk tho.

Careful, the self appointed 2NR Racist Police Squad, led by CoP shogun, and ACP Redman will not be pleased.

[zoom rader]

no matter what clown inbutt or chief toolum head say, let us all as grown adults be honest
nobody wants to risk losing what they worked hard to acquire for an opportunity to pay for getting nothing positive in return. & nobody anywhere ever actually wants to pay more taxes. & this is particularly true when they live on modest incomes and are fully well aware that for their additional tax dollars they will continue to see it being piddled away and not used to benefit them in any way, or that their tax dollars will be used to reduce taxation of corporations & the uber rich.

they hoping ppl forget, & they think not talking about it will allow them & their bs to slide under the radar. That eh go wuk tho.

Careful, the self appointed 2NR Racist Police Squad, led by CoP shogun, and ACP Redman will not be pleased.

You forgot eleit, the silent one

[88sins]

and if the object between the man ears shares many a resemblance to toolum, from shape to color to density, what racist about that?

[The_Honourable]

Take advantage of tax amnesty—Imbert



Use the tax amnesty which be­gins Mon­day to clean up your tax­es—in­clud­ing over­due land and build­ing tax­es—and es­pe­cial­ly since the Un­ex­plained Wealth law be­gan yes­ter­day.

That was the mes­sage from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi on Fri­day.

They were speak­ing dur­ing Par­lia­ment de­bate on a Mis­cel­la­neous bill deal­ing with is­sues rang­ing from the tax amnesty, an en­hanced pen­sion pack­age for leg­is­la­tors and judges, a change to the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act and oth­er is­sues.

The amnesty start­ing Mon­day un­til Sep­tem­ber will re­move in­ter­est and penal­ties on tax­es and will ap­ply to all tax­es. Gov­ern­ment projects earn­ing $500m from the amnesty.

The Board of In­land Rev­enue will waive penal­ties and in­ter­est from Mon­day al­though the bill will be fi­nalised next week.

Im­bert urged peo­ple to use the fa­cil­i­ty to pay Land and Build­ing (L&B) tax­es es­pe­cial­ly since the L&B tax is payable un­der Gov­ern­ment’s Prop­er­ty Tax sched­ule. He said some peo­ple had not paid L&B tax­es for years and that had stymied their prop­er­ty sales since the trans­ac­tion re­quires such tax­es to be paid.

He al­so urged the pub­lic to clean up their out­stand­ing tax­es be­fore the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) be­gins op­er­a­tions. A bill to gov­ern TTRA op­er­a­tions will be done in the com­ing days be­fore Par­lia­ment goes on re­cess.

More: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/take-adv ... a552119f1b

[zoom rader]

^^^ it's just a bill

[shake d livin wake d dead]

so I witnessed a site visit from the property tax people this morning (visited meh neighbor, so ah macko)

initially they measured every corner of her house, car porch separate, gazebo separate, outdoor toilet and storage room separate, they pass she lil temple straight...questions asked ;

how many bedrooms
bathrooms
ac
water pump
hot/cold
type of roof/ceiling
type of floor
type of windows

and well according to the peeps, this property tax thing is expected to be implemented next year

[VexXx Dogg]

so I witnessed a site visit from the property tax people this morning (visited meh neighbor, so ah macko)

initially they measured every corner of her house, car porch separate, gazebo separate, outdoor toilet and storage room separate, they pass she lil temple straight...questions asked ;

how many bedrooms
bathrooms
ac
water pump
hot/cold
type of roof/ceiling
type of floor
type of windows

and well according to the peeps, this property tax thing is expected to be implemented next year

[shake d livin wake d dead]

I aint go lie, the water pump question throw meh down

[MG Man]

I aint go lie, the water pump question throw meh down

can't get fking water / water pressure to reach a shower head, but they want to include pump as a value-enhancing asset?

If they checking that and water heater, they gonna start counting ac, lighting fixtures, door knobs and security cameras too?

[88sins]

I aint go lie, the water pump question throw meh down

can't get fking water / water pressure to reach a shower head, but they want to include pump as a value-enhancing asset?

If they checking that and water heater, they gonna start counting ac, lighting fixtures, door knobs and security cameras too?

exactly

basically, ANYTHING you have in your house they assigning it as an item that adds value to the property.From A/C to a light fixture that looks like a chandelier, to security systems. Basically, it's an "ah go tax yuh on everything yuh have forever" tax, never mind that the older these things get their value depreciates.

but allyuh vote fuh dat

[shake d livin wake d dead]

Dred, the lady walk around and check the ac units to make sure meh neighbor wasnt lying...my neighbor's car porch is somewhat of an extension, they measured that separate yes....basically anything with a roof getting measured by itself...

Wrt to pump, a pump is a mc necessity...not a luxury...

They did 5 houses in my area today

[MG Man]

I will accept responsibility due to my failure to vote in the last general election...granted my location is one of those 'guaranteed for x party' so even voting against one or the other is largely irrelevant

[D Diesel Report]

I aint go lie, the water pump question throw meh down

can't get fking water / water pressure to reach a shower head, but they want to include pump as a value-enhancing asset?

If they checking that and water heater, they gonna start counting ac, lighting fixtures, door knobs and security cameras too?

exactly

basically, ANYTHING you have in your house they assigning it as an item that adds value to the property.From A/C to a light fixture that looks like a chandelier, to security systems. Basically, it's an "ah go tax yuh on everything yuh have forever" tax, never mind that the older these things get their value depreciates.

but allyuh vote fuh dat

Apparently we is supposed to ignore you when yuh say allyuh vote for that because it don’t solve de problem.

The best solution to dis ting is to lie and den when they try to enter yuh house, threaten with violence and say you is a rankin pnm. Does work every time.

[ProtonPowder]

Was waiting for this thread to take a bump again.
They assessing residentials as normal, but the tax will not be implemented for at least 2-3 more years.
There are simply not enough submissions to reach the legally mandated threshold to start making the valuations enforced.

[sMASH]

ey, i forget bout dat. last month they came to check me. the day they came, i had to make a spin, to sign up for e-tax( yeah, had to physically sign up for online tax).

so, i left the gate open, told my aunt next door that they coming. i did not reach back in time, they went in. they ask my aunt to open the door and go inside. she say if it lock u cant go in. they said they would call back.
i got those same questions. yes, the pump was a question. and OBVIOUSLY, i have no pump on the questionaire. it did hide up behind some galvanize that the two girls not going to shift.

they called to visit the agricultural land, but to reach there in the rainy season isnt such a good idea. that person said that if it difficult to reach they not going. there is a road, but i explained that the land had slipped because fire passed through during the rainy season, so it not stable, and the 4 wheel drive barely got me out, cause is only bison and tractor that goes that far.

[The_Honourable]

Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, says the United National Congress (UNC) has sabotaged the government's efforts to move towards Local Government Reform due to the legal challenge on the property tax.

[hydroep]

Somebody really need to stuff a calabash in he mouth yes...

[bluefete]

Somebody really need to stuff a calabash in he mouth yes...

Aye, Gary say yuh cyar say dat boy. Dat is wishing harm on de master he serves.

[zoom rader]

Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, says the United National Congress (UNC) has sabotaged the government's efforts to move towards Local Government Reform due to the legal challenge on the property tax.

Rowlee MC we ant paying no PNM tax