Dumas: Tobago land titles, glitch for property tax

Dumas, in supporting the return of the tax, which has been on hold since 2009, told Sunday Newsday on Friday that “the law is the law”

“The law applies to Trinidad and Tobago and therefore if people in Trinidad has to pay the tax, the people in Tobago has to pay the tax as well,” he said

“If you have lands, you have buildings, you can challenge the tax if you like, find a lawyer to argue that the tax is not valid but as long as Tobago is in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and there is a valid law, the law applies to Tobago as well. While you can challenge the law, the fact is that as far as I know the law is a valid one which applies to the whole of Trinidad and Tobago.” Dumas noted likely problems with the implementation process – in determining the rental value, and also a peculiar situation in Tobago where a lot of people do not have written titles for the lands they are occupying

“The big question is who decides on the rental, because if you are going to base the property tax on the rental value, then who decides on the rental value? “The question is how, in the peculiar circumstances of Tobago, how do you arrive at fairness and accuracy when a lot of people do not have any written titles for their land on which they have built houses. There is a land situation where a lot of people simply do not have any written titles to the land because the land is traditional, it has been passed on from one generation to the next generation and so on and people do not have any documentation to show that the document belongs to them,” he said

“Everything, some years ago, was supposed to be put under the Real Property Ordinance (RPO) but I don’t think it ever was, so there would be a difficulty in Tobago in terms of who owns what, I don’t know how the Government is going to sort that one out,” he added

Dumas also dismissed Section 25, Item 1 of the 5th Schedule of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Act, which gives the Assembly the responsibility for “finance and the collection of revenue in Tobago”, describing the THA Act of 1996 as “a waste of time”

“With all that 5th schedule business and matter that the THA is responsible for and all that, there is another section which refers to the powers of the Cabinet and it says that the Cabinet has the powers to make policies for Trinidad and Tobago, so in spite of the 5th schedule … and that is why most of us have been trying to get the act changed to put genuine powers in the hands of the THA but we’ve been resisted by people in the THA itself,” he said

Minority Leader Watson Duke, contacted for his comments on the property tax, said, “it is not a good timing to introduce this act.” “Property tax should not be introduced with new rates during a time where Government is causing the system to contract. Gas prices, fuel prices have been increased three times

By denying workers the rights to their adjustments to deal with challenging times…I am saying that the time is not now

“Government should hold off on that until some level of normalcy has returned to the people of Trinidad and Tobago and more importantly, the Tobago people. Additionally, Tobagonians are not in a position (to pay the tax) where they have no clear land titles,” Duke said