Arima pensioner Anthony Howard, who owns his own home, is calling on the Government to penalise contractors working on State-projects where there are millions of dollars of cost overruns, instead of seeking to earn more revenue by increasing property taxes.

’I am saying that the guys, whoever is responsible for providing, for arranging such a contract, something is wrong with them. Poor supervision, poor management, poor distribution, some penalty should be paid, not the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago,’ Howard said.

He made his plea directly to Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira during a meeting she held with her constituents in the D’Abadie/O’Meara constituency she represents in the Parliament. The meeting was called to address the controversial planned new property taxes that will result in an increase in the dues for most agricultural, commercial, industrial and residential property owners.

Howard was one of several home owners who expressed concerns about the new taxes, despite Nunez-Tesheira’s assurances that the measure is not an uncaring one on the Government’s part, but one designed to ensure equity for all of the nation’s property owners.

’It is not a new tax. It has always been there. You have been paying it but we have not been paying it based on the current rental value of your property,’ Nunez-Tesheira told the meeting.

She pointed out that the new measure, which is contained in the 2009/2010 Budget that was passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday and is to be debated in the Senate next week, will set an across the board three per cent property tax based on the most up-to-date rental value of each property.

This will replace the existing taxes paid by those who live in Point Fortin, Port of Spain, Chaguanas, San Fernando and Arima, which are separate to those paid by home owners in the rest of the country based on decades old evaluations.

While she acknowledged that property owners who, for example, paid $200 in residential property taxes may now have to pay as much as $600 a year under the new measure, Nunez-Tesheira said this must be taken in the context of the amount of subsidies Government pays for gasoline, diesel and social services. She also told her constituents that those who earn below $6,000 a month do not pay personal income taxes and the maximum rate is 25 per cent.

In addition, Nunez-Tesheira said a new computerised property tax collection system will be implemented using Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology ’to see the entire of Trinidad and Tobago, every single property’, as she revealed that the Finance Ministry’s valuation division has assessed that ’there are about 200,000, more than that, who are not paying property taxes’.

She did so in response to one Arima constituent who asked her what assurances she could give that the system being used to evaluate properties across the country will be fair and not result in one property owner paying more taxes than another in the same area.