The Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce be­lieves manda­to­ry in­come tax fil­ing could bring mil­lions of dol­lars in ad­di­tion­al rev­enue to the Gov­ern­ment by bring­ing more in­di­vid­u­als and small busi­ness op­er­a­tors in­to the tax sys­tem.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has reg­is­tered strong dis­agree­ment with the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion grant­ed to the is­land in the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get, say­ing he felt “gut­ted” by cuts to cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment and a re­duc­tion in To­ba­go’s over­all per­cent­age of the na­tion­al purse.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has pro­posed a 12.5 per cent VAT on dig­i­tal ser­vices sup­plied by for­eign providers, which cur­rent­ly in­clude stream­ing plat­forms such as Net­flix, Hu­lu, Ap­pleTV, HBO Max and Dis­ney+, and a high­er sur­charge on high res­i­den­tial elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion. This in­tro­duces two ad­di­tion­al costs for house­holds in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der the 2027 Bud­get.

Se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion and oth­er grants will be in­creased by $250 in 2027, tax­a­tion on lo­cal­ly pro­duced al­co­hol will be re­duced and the Forex thresh­old will be in­creased to US$10,000.

The 2027 Bud­get in­cludes a range of mea­sures tar­get­ing tax com­pli­ance, in­vest­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, so­cial sup­port and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, along­side changes to Na­tion­al In­sur­ance, VAT and cus­toms penal­ties.

There were no plac­ards of protest, no an­gry chants and no demon­stra­tors de­mand­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­scrib­ing the 2027 Bud­get as “awe­some” and in­sist­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies are de­signed to sup­port the coun­try’s most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate jobs.

Ac­tor and dis­abil­i­ty rights ad­vo­cate RJ Mitte, who brought a life­time of ex­pe­ri­ence with cere­bral pal­sy to fic­tion­al fam­i­ly strug­gles in an es­sen­tial role on “Break­ing Bad,” died Mon­day at age 34, au­thor­i­ties and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives said.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has slammed the Gov­ern­ment’s 2027 Bud­get as a “biki­ni bud­get” lack­ing sub­stance, da­ta and a clear vi­sion for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

A vis­i­bly up­set Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­ba­go has not re­ceived its fair share of fund­ing for fis­cal 2027.

Fis­cal re­silience and busi­ness cash flow are at the heart of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s as­sess­ment of Bud­get 2027, with the busi­ness group warn­ing that the coun­try’s fis­cal out­look re­mains vul­ner­a­ble to swings in glob­al en­er­gy prices.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Leti­tia Cox says she was left dis­ap­point­ed by the 2027 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.