By Prior Beharry
MORE than 33,000 people will receive income tax refunds of $20,000 or less from next week.
This was stated by Minister of Finance Colm Imbert in a release on Saturday.
The release stated that Imbert recently authorised the Board of Inland Revenue to pay all individual income tax refunds of up to $20,000 or less.
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It stated, “The Minister is pleased to advise that after a detailed process of review, assessment and verification, the Board has advised him that 33,466 tax refund cheques have been printed and are being enveloped and batched for delivery through TTPost.
“Over 30,000 taxpayers should thus expect to receive their individual income tax refund cheques in the mail within the next week.”
But, the United National Congress UNC states that this was a desperate corrupt raiding of the Treasury before local government elections on Monday.
The UNC asked: “Since when does the Ministry work on a Saturday? Why couldn’t the Ministry release this information on Monday, the next working day?
“This is a blatant and scandalous use of State resources for electioneering purposes.
“While we welcome all quick and legitimate payments to citizens, we condemn the withholding of these funds by the PNM, only to use for election bribery. Bribery has been the mode of the PNM in these elections, ever since they were called.
“The PNM are obviously very worried about these local government elections, because they know they will lose, and this will be the end of their administration in central government.
“They will be a lame-duck government which has been shut out of local government in both Tobago and Trinidad.
“We advise citizens to take the funds legitimately owed to them and deliberately withheld from them by the PNM, and vote for the UNC and NTA on Monday 14 August 2023.”
