PORT-OF-SPAIN – PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley says Trinidad and Tobago has lost $2 billion in the last four years due to uncollected property taxes.
He made the revelation during People’s National Movement Conversations with the Political Leader at City Hall, Port-of-Spain on Thursday night.
Rowley said, “We are the only people in the world looking to government for every God-in-heaven thing and not paying a cent in residential tax.”
He said TT lost $500 million annually in residential taxes which amounts to $2 billion in the past four years “from a tax you hardly noticed.”
Rowley said the drop in revenue was because the issue of property tax was tied up in court following a challenge by the Opposition.
He recalled that from the age of 17 he had paid residential tax of $1.40 for his grandfather’s property in Tobago.
Rowley said there were people living in houses worth $20 million and wanted Government to fix roads and “kill every mosquito and every rat” but were not paying a dollar in tax.
“This tax would have broken nobody’s back,” he said.
