Category Archives: Finance

Finance, General T&T, International, Law, PNM, Politics

Questions over Financial Intelligence Unit Bill

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Neswday Editorial
Thursday, October 8 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009WE congratulate the Independent and Opposition Senators for exposing the potential pitfalls of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Bill 2009 debated in the Senate on Tuesday, but we wonder whether the Government made sufficient concessions to their concerns.

This stringent Bill sets up the FIU with sweeping powers to investigate any business activity deemed “suspicious,” with hefty fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to three years for someone refusing to disclose information.
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Complaints, Finance, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Proliferation of Fact and Fiction in the Property Tax Debacle

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By Stephen Kangal – Caroni
October 07, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThis ill-conceived, thief-in-the night and fiscally obscene property tax is being driven and confused by a conflicting and contradictory interplay of the contending forces of fact and fiction. In one fell swoop all proud resident home-owners of T&T have been reduced to fictitious renters paying fictitiously high rents way beyond their (f)actual salaries in order to arrive at an artificial and fictitious annual taxable value (ATV) for one’s fictitiously rented home. They have even thrown in the factual two-month compensatory renting hiatus period to arrive at the fictitious, unreal ATV.
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Complaints, COP, Finance, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Getting our priorities right

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By Raffique Shah
October 04, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseTHE battle over Government’s proposed property tax has intensified. On the one hand, the vast majority of citizens, civic organisations and NGOs have been very vocal in their bid to have government reverse “this oppressive new tax that will pauperise the working and middle classes.” On the other side, the Government has undertaken a media campaign to convince people that the tax is not a new imposition, nor will it be harsh and oppressive.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics

Ministers Doing a Demolition Job on Finance Minister Tesheira

By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Karen Nunez-TesheiraIt is palpably unsettling to witness the pathetic display of Ministers in the Ministry of Finance (not for the first time), Minister Imbert and including Local Government Minister Hazel Manning attacking with full force the credibility and integrity of Finance Minister Tesheira’s “done deal” property tax. This tax reinforced by Finance Ministry vaulting- ambitious aspirants may very well hasten her imminent political waterloo because she has now been relegated to cold storage. She does not speak on her draconian fiscal measure any more. She has been muzzled.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics, UNC

PM’s legal debts

Newsday Editorial
September 30 2009 – newsday.co.tt

PM Patrick ManningATTORNEY GENERAL (AG) John Jeremie did not exactly admit it on Monday in the Senate, but in our view he seemed to be trying to make a case for debt-forgiveness for the half-million dollars owed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning as unpaid legal costs to the State. Mr Jeremie said Mr Manning has so far paid $555,000 out of a $1.15 million debt incurred in 2002 when he lost his High Court bid to stop the defection of the then-Opposition MPs Dr Rupert Griffith and Dr Vincent Lasse to join the former UNC government.
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Complaints, Culture, Finance, General T&T, Media, Politics, Race and Identity

Louis Lee Sing pushes for compulsory national service

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Use money from URP

By Corey Connelly
September 29 2009 – newsday.co.tt

Louis Lee SingExecutive chairman of Citadel Limited, Louis Lee Sing, yesterday suggested that the monies allocated to the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) be directed to the proposed National Compulsory Service initiative.

“If ever you had an opportunity of killing two birds with one stone, that is it,” he said while delivering a comprehensive presentation on the company’s proposal for compulsory national service.
Continue reading Louis Lee Sing pushes for compulsory national service →

Complaints, Finance, General T&T, Politics, Race and Identity, Religion

Govt to pay Maha Sabha $3M for radio licence delay

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By Sacha Wilson
Published: 23 Sep 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Satnarayan MaharajThe State has to pay the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, which operates Central Broadcasting Services Ltd, close to $3 million in damages for its unequal treatment and delay in granting them a FM radio broadcasting licence.

Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh awarded compensatory and vindicatory damages yesterday by way of a video conference at the San Fernando High Court.
Continue reading Govt to pay Maha Sabha $3M for radio licence delay →

Finance, General T&T, Law, Politics, Tobago, UDeCOTT

No to Increase in Property Tax!

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By Sylvan N. Wilson
September 20, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThe Government and in particular the Minister of Finance have been attempting to justify their murderous property tax by arguing that the value of properties has changed since 1948. They have astutely deciphered that properties have increased in value over the last sixty-one years.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics

PM’s Veto Unfathomable

By Onika James
September 19, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HousePrime Minister Patrick Manning’s veto of Carla Brown-Antoine for the post of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Government’s “retrograde step” to set up a Ministry of Justice are “dark clouds” over the Judiciary and the administration of justice, Law Association president Martin Daly SC warned yesterday.

As he criticised Manning’s “exercise of the constitutional veto” of Brown-Antoine as DPP, Daly praised Chief Justice Ivor Archie’s “wonderful dissertation” in the defence of the independence of the Judiciary.
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Finance, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Resistance to taxation

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By Raffique Shah
September 13, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseTAXATION in any form meets with resistance from those who are made to pay taxes. The tide of taxation-discontent varies. In 1773 in what is now the USA, the cry “no taxation without representation” led to the American Revolution and its declaration of independence from Britain in 1776. The 1990 introduction of the infamous Poll Tax by then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, led to the Iron Lady’s political demise. Now, Karen Nunez-Tesheira’s increased property tax seems poised to be the most contentious issue emanating from her pocket-full of adjusted tax measures.
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