Imbert: Most will pay $45-$90/month in property tax

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert on Friday said lower-valued properties would incur a property tax of just $540 per year, while most middle-class home-owners would pay between $1,800 and $2,700 annually, speaking in the Senate on the Valuation of Land (Amendment) Bill 2023 which facilitates the enactment of the property tax.

Saying TT had a history of 200 years of paying various types of land tax, he reckoned that in a recent 14-year period some $1.4 billion had been lost in unpaid land tax.

He said up to Friday, his ministry’s Valuation Division had told him 234,573 people had registered their residential property, up from about 225,000 previously.

This meant the property tax could be enacted, as more than 50 per cent of the country’s 400,000 residential properties were registered (out of 600,000 total properties in all – residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural).

Imbert listed the range of property tax charges which each corresponded to a given valuation of three per cent of a residential property’s rental value.

“In terms of the lowest possible value that would be placed on a house (worth) $18,000 or less, so far there are valued 36,103 properties.”

Imbert said three per cent of that rental value of $18,000 was $540 per year or $45 per month. That valuation applied to about 15 per cent of the properties valued so far, he added.

Imbert said TT so far had 60,895 properties valued at an annual rental value of $18,000-$36,000, or $1,500-$3,000 a month.

He noted 96,988 residential properties with rental values of $18,000-$36,000, out of 234,000 properties in all.
“And the tax on the properties which have a rental value of $36,000 a year will be $1,080 per year, or $90 per month."
He estimated that more than half of residential properties would ultimately be valued at a rate of a property tax payment of $540-$1,080 per year.

“There are a number of properties at the lower level that have not yet been valued and these proportions may change and you may find that more than 50 per cent of properties may fall in this range of property tax, of somewhere between $540 a year and $1,080 a year, so $45 a month or $90 a month.”

Imbert recalled recently explaining to a businessman that his property would not incur a property tax of $15,000 per year.

Replying to Independent Senator Dr Maria Dillon-Remy, Imbert said the tax was calculated as three per cent of the discounted rental value minus ten per cent.

Imbert then said properties with rental values in a band of $36,00-$60,000 annually or $3,000-$5,000 per month would attract a property tax of $1,800 per year or $150 per month. “You now begin to see that 65 per cent – two thirds of properties in TT – will attract a tax of between $540 a year and $1,080 a year - $45 a month and $150 a month.
“I want to repeat that over 65 per cent of properties will attract a property tax of between $540 a year and $1,080 a year.”
He said he was fed up of a prevalence misinformation over property tax rates.

“If you go to another band – $5,000 a month to $7,500 – that is $60,00 a year in annual rental value and $90,00 a year –in that band there are 33,549 properties valued so far.”
The next highest band, above $7,000 monthly rental value, has 52,975 properties valued so far.

Some 22 per cent of properties are valued at above $7,500 per month and almost 80 per cent below that, in monthly rental value, Imbert added.

He said a $7,500 monthly rental value will attract a property tax of $2,700 per year.

“The vast majority of the middle class will be captured between $5,000-a-month range and $7,500-a-month range.

“So you are looking at taxes between $1,800 and $2,700 for a middle-class home owner and taxes of $500 and $1,000 a year for people at the lower end.”

Replying to Independent Senator Anthony Vieira, he said the tax will be applied only for 2023. Earlier, Independent Senator Charrise Seepersad suggested the property tax not kick in until the valuation roll had reached a 75 per cent rate of registration rather than the existing level of 50 per cent.