JSC report on FATCA on Friday

He was speaking yesterday at the post-PNM general council media conference at Balisier House, Port-of-Spain He reported the issue of the party’s strategy on FATCA was spoken of and the membership informed of the status. FATCA is a US tax law which became effective on July 1, 2014 and was designed to combat offshore tax evasion by US citizens with accounts and/or investments with both foreign and non-financial entities.

After failing to meet a September 30 deadline this country received an extension to February 2017. The legislation to make this country FATCA compliant, the Tax Information and Exchange Agreement Bill 2016, was sent to the JSC upon the insistence of the Opposition.

Also in the briefing yesterday, Young reported that the Prime Minister announced that he would be resuming his “conversations with the people of Trinidad and Tobago” which he had done as Opposition Leader in September 2015 prior to the general election. The conversations will commence in February this year.

Asked whether the conversations were being resumed due to a fall in party support Young said that party support had continued and analytics did not support claims of the decrease in support.

He said the next election will be in 2019 and Rowley felt it was an appropriate time to “get back out there” during a non-election period.

Young also reported that at the general council meeting the Finance Minister and Labour Minister were congratulated for their efforts towards dealing with the recent threats a strike at Petrotrin.

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi was also congratulated on his handling of the amendments to the marriage law which increased the legal marriage age to 18.

There was also congratulations to the PNM membership in Tobago for the 10-2 victory in the recent Tobago House of Assembly elections.

Newly sworn in Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles was present yesterday and spoke about the victory.