Govt to tax Carnival artistes

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­[email protected]

The Gov­ern­ment’s move to im­pose tax­es on lo­cal artistes will be ad­dressed by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) af­ter Car­ni­val 2026.

This com­mit­ment was giv­en by TU­CO’s pres­i­dent, Ains­ley King, dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, as the first at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to get stake­hold­ers to pay tax­es on monies earned for Car­ni­val, more than a decade ago, had failed.

On Jan­u­ary 12, the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) of the Min­istry of Fi­nance ad­vised pro­mot­ers, band­lead­ers and lo­cal and for­eign artistes of their oblig­a­tions to pay their re­quired tax­es dur­ing the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

The IRD al­so ad­vised that it would con­duct field vis­its to stake­hold­ers to en­sure their tax oblig­a­tions are paid.

In a state­ment, the IRD in­formed pro­mot­ers that they are re­quired to reg­is­ter for VAT, hav­ing earned gross re­ceipts of $600,000 as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023.

They al­so have to pay in­come tax, cor­po­ra­tion tax, green fund levy and deduct and re­mit with­hold­ing tax for for­eign artistes, as well as sub­mit re­turns.

Sim­i­lar tax­es and sub­mis­sions have al­so been im­posed on band­lead­ers.

In the case of reg­is­ter­ing for VAT, where gross re­ceipts of $600,000 is at­tained, no date was giv­en for band­lead­ers.

While lo­cal artistes would have to pay health sur­charge, in­come tax and sub­mit re­turns, for­eign artistes were in­formed that they would be li­able for with­hold­ing tax de­duct­ed and re­mit­ted by pro­mot­er/s.

“We will have to face it. And then I know the con­cerns and dis­cus­sions will start tak­ing place,” King said.

He said it’s an is­sue they can’t avoid, which they would look in­to af­ter the Car­ni­val sea­son.

“If it’s some­thing that is go­ing to be­come law, then we would have to make ad­just­ments to deal with it. As soon as the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od pass­es and peo­ple’s con­scious­ness comes back, then they would deal with it.”

He said the tax­es are be­ing in­tro­duced when artistes are en­gaged in night­ly per­for­mances lead­ing up to Car­ni­val, and they may not pay much at­ten­tion to this lat­est de­vel­op­ment.

At least two pro­mot­ers, Randy Glas­gow and George Singh, said they have been VAT-reg­is­tered for years and are com­pli­ant with the law.

‘Tax­es a thief in the night’

Three band­lead­ers, Leo Lakhan, Rick­ie David­son and Mor­gana Beach, said these tax­es came like a thief in the night.

David­son of Wee Mas In­ter­na­tion­al said some­time in 2011, the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment tried to im­ple­ment tax­es on band­lead­ers, but it fell flat.

He was in­ter­viewed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance con­cern­ing his earn­ings, but there were no fol­low-up dis­cus­sions.

In his 17 years of op­er­a­tion, David­son nev­er paid tax­es on his band.

“You know, you can’t pay tax­es if you’re mak­ing no mon­ey.”

The 100 peo­ple he ex­pect­ed to reg­is­ter in his small band this Car­ni­val have fall­en short.

David­son had to cut his six sec­tions to five.

Leader of Beach and As­so­ciates Kid­dies Car­ni­val Band, Mor­gana Beach, ad­mit­ted to us­ing re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als to pro­duce cos­tumes for 100 chil­dren.

She sal­vaged lace that a large band want­ed to dump to pro­duce some of her sec­tions.

“Peo­ple are not buy­ing. I would say 35 per cent of the band is free be­cause we know a lot of peo­ple can’t af­ford the cos­tumes and want to en­joy Car­ni­val.”

She ad­mit­ted the pay­ments of tax­es were wor­ry­ing.

Lakhan said he had to ab­sorb the in­crease in cus­toms du­ties on al­co­hol for his mas­quer­aders.

He had bud­get­ed one price for al­co­hol for his An­tourage Pro­duc­tions band, but now it’s cost­ing him dou­ble.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­una said when you reach a cer­tain age, “I doh think you does pay these things (tax­es). Maybe that is for the younger ones. When I was younger, I used to pay it.”

De­von Seale, who pays tax­es and health sur­charge as an em­ploy­ee, want­ed to know if the im­po­si­tion of this new tax ap­plies to him as a ca­lyp­son­ian.

He won­dered if he would have to pay two sets of health sur­charge fees un­der the IRD ad­vi­so­ry.

“It’s a bit am­bigu­ous,” Seale said.

Of the sev­en stake­hold­ers we in­ter­viewed, none were vis­it­ed by IRD field of­fi­cers.