IMBERT’S TTRA TO TAX DOUBLES VENDORS

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert, who is scraping everywhere to collect money, will soon tax doubles and other vendors.

The Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA), which is being operationalised, will issue Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) numbers to wayside and itinerant vendors, who would then be mandated to file annual tax returns.

That will make the vendors liable to pay income tax according to the BIR assessment schedule.

The issuance of taxation numbers is expected to begin within the next months, according to informed sources.

Imbert has been frantically seeking to raise revenue outside of periodic borrowings and the withdrawal from the sovereign Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF).

The Government recently lifted the borrowing ceiling by $10 billion.

Imbert, in an affidavit to support the functioning of TTRA, said: “The Government cannot continue to sustain budget deficits by increasing Government borrowing and debt much longer.”

 He also said: “International credit rating agencies have warned that if the Government is not able to achieve fiscal consolidation in the near future, the country’s international credit rating will be downgraded.”

The Minister, who has delivered eight deficit budgets in nine years, has been pressing for the TTRA to begin running.

He authorised the issuance of letters to workers in the existing agencies that would comprise the TTRA, giving him until July 31 to state whether they are willing to join the new agency.

Those workers are currently employed at the Inland Revenue Division and Customs and Excise Division.

Imbert’s move angered the Public Services Association, which asked the Court of Appeal to clarify its decision to permit an appeal on a relevant lawsuit.

PSA said the Minister’s action “flies in the face of the rule of law.”

The TTRA is designed to tackle weaknesses in the current tax collection system by spreading the net to cover everyone who earns an income.

At present, workers in the informal sector do not pay taxes.

But the measure is expected to harshly impact the working poor, who are already bearing the high cost of food, transportation, accommodation and other necessities.

The Government has been roundly criticised for its lack of diversification of the economy away from the energy sector, which is bringing in lesser and lesser returns because of falling production and sagging prices.

Natural gas production is at its lowest in almost 20 years.

Oil output has fallen by about 30 per cent in the last decade.

Improved tax collection is the Government’s primary measure to boost revenues.

Public affairs observers see a return to the national economic circumstances of the early 1980s, when the George Chambers administration introduced sweeping taxes.

The Chambers regime took a US $100 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which came with tough conditions.

Public officers’ salaries were slashed by 10 per cent and other stringent measures were introduced.

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has boasted that his administration has not sought an IMF bailout.

But the absence of the major sources of income has led to a drastic fall in the quality of life.

And now, struggling doubles and other vendors will face the tax man.