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Genius1 wrote:If they want to follow the USA so much government should only be able to stay in power for two terms Max so no more PNM Or UNC we need fresh mines.
EFFECTIC DESIGNS wrote:I say 2 terms not sure why this isn't a thing. Also for people like imbert 15 seconds max and they need to be out!!!
RedVEVO wrote:The Opposition and specific attorneys have submitted the the "Property Tax" is unconstitutional .
They claim it will be challenged in the T&T Legal Courts.
But how long do citizens have to wait for the Opposition's riot and Court battle ?
May 23 rd ?
16 cycles wrote:when last opposition won any court case??
good luck to ppl taking kams advice....
DALY BREAD: The poll tax; why PNM’s property tax could lead to electoral defeat again!
The current Government has fatally underestimated the resistance to the proposed property tax. If it does not make concessions on the methodology of its introduction and of its implementation, the property tax will become a poll tax when it leads to defeat at the polls.
Of course, much of the resistance is the natural resistance to paying increased or new taxes, particularly in what is undoubtedly a guava season. But there are a plethora of other potent and upsetting issues.
Paramount among these issues is the security and privacy concern, which are really two overlapping concerns.
Very few citizens are going to let any stranger in the guise of a valuation inspector into their home to inspect their premises and to see the layout—even when a badge or other purported credentials are presented to the occupant of the home. We will cry like the Queen in Sparrow’s calypso, “There is a man in my bedroom.”
False credentials are a reality. With or without credentials, who knows what kind of background check has been done on the valuation inspectors and, most importantly, who knows with whom the strangers are associated or under whose influence they may fall?
This is also a society in which women are vulnerable to attack. Single women living alone ought not to be forced or exposed to having their status disclosed, which will be the inevitable result of a home visit. Moreover, public trust is at its lowest ebb since Independence and fear of human and organ trafficking is rife.
Any methodology of property assessment that requires entry into one’s home will be the first nail in the poll tax coffin. Field observations of where citizens live should be confined to roadside observations. This would sit well with the option of charging property tax in bands, which fix rates by reference to areas instead of individual properties, as I suggest below.
Equally hotly contested is the written information that should accompany the return of ownership declaration that the property owner is required to make. There are serious questions as to the source of the authority to require an owner to provide a floor plan and photograph of the premises and the consequent legality of those demands.
Whatever the legal authority to extract such information from homeowners, such documentation is to provide a road map for bandits—who are frequently untouchable or unapprehended—since it is idle to pretend that information supplied to Government departments necessarily remains confidential within the department.
I have not chosen the label “poll tax” merely to underline the grave electoral threat to the Government when next it faces the polls, if it proceeds to inflict monumental invasions of privacy upon us and to increase our already high sense of unease about our personal safety.
In the United Kingdom, the mighty Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was brought down by her proposal for a poll tax despite having hitherto being unbeatable electorally. The poll tax was a flat rate charge per capita tax on every adult.
I do not want this column to be inflammatory. Readers can follow the turbulent fate of the poll tax and the resignation of Thatcher by looking up the poll tax march of 31 March 1990.
When Thatcher resigned, John Major succeeded her. His Government abolished the poll tax and replaced it with a Council Tax in which each property was assigned to one of eight bands based on property value. The Council tax was intended to replace rates based on the estimated rental value of a home.
For us, I would like consideration to be given to placing local government electoral areas—not individual properties—into bands subject to suitable tax relief for retirees, victims of redundancy and other cases worthy of relief. Residential and business properties would also be placed in different bands.
There is also a significant policy question. Property-based taxes are usually set by the local government area where the taxpayer lives and are intended to fund local government. It appears that the proceeds of our property tax will be part of the Central Government’s revenues.
The current Government should be careful how it embraces that ghost of the former prime minister and party leader, Mr Patrick Manning. Property tax was a significant factor in bringing Manning down in the 2010 General Election. Remember the slogan “Axe the tax” and the crossed arms of Percy refusing entry into his home.
“Axe the tax” will be back with the force of a classic road march. Does this Government want to go there?
Within a few days of each other in May are the deadline for filing the intrusive information about one’s home and the grand opening of the ridiculously expensive Tarouba stadium.
This stadium is arguably the most unnecessary venture ever undertaken by any Government, even if it could double as “a tsunami shelter” as was laughably suggested. Do we want to go there?
88sins wrote:So now we have Property tax. All well & good.
Time to do away with stamp duty.
88sins wrote:Won't happen under UNC/COP/PP either.
& how much allyuh willing to bet, if by some miracle/black magic/all out paid for method the UNC, or any other party, takes office, that property tax staying right where it is.
matr1x wrote: And the racism. To hell with pnm
matr1x wrote:Government offices don't have to pay property tax, nor the properties they are renting from. They boys getting their kickback.
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