$2.8B to pay salaries

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment will next week add $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal funds to the 2026 Bud­get, main­ly to pay for salary in­creas­es for 62,050 unionised work­ers - and the mid-year re­view of the Bud­get will sub­se­quent­ly be de­liv­ered on June 15.

This was in­di­cat­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

The 2026 Bud­get of 59.232 bil­lion was de­liv­ered by Tan­coo last Oc­to­ber. The sup­ple­men­tal $2.93B in fund­ing which is com­ing will take the 2026 Bud­get to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $62.162B.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the House will meet again be­tween next Wednes­day and June 15 on the re­spec­tive process­es.

A Fi­nance bill, which will give ef­fect to mea­sures an­nounced in the 2026 Bud­get, will be pre­sent­ed when the House meets at 10.30 am next Wednes­day.

The Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing House MPs, will meet next Fri­day af­ter­noon to dis­cuss and ap­prove the sums in­volved in the to­tal $2.3B which will sup­ple­ment Bud­get al­lo­ca­tions in var­i­ous ar­eas.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ments MPs will grill Gov­ern­ment on the sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing.

On June 15 at 10.30 am, Tan­coo will present the mid-year re­view, which both sides will de­bate.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the $2.93B in ad­di­tion­al funds is to meet “... the bills of T&T for this fis­cal year.”

Out of the 2.93B, she said, “2.83B is re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture and it will ap­ply to the new wages and salaries that Gov­ern­ment is pay­ing to over 62,050 per­sons. So, we have to find the mon­ey for these in­creased salaries.”

Ear­li­er in her ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said 62,050 unionised work­ers are now get­ting high­er salaries.

This fol­lowed set­tle­ment with var­i­ous unions. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign had promised in­creas­es to var­i­ous unions.

The Fi­nance Bill, which Tan­coo laid in the House yes­ter­day, de­tails 31 claus­es amend­ing var­i­ous laws.

It in­cludes new sec­tions to ex­empt pri­vate pen­sion plans from tax, to clar­i­fy is­sues per­tain­ing to the Land­lord Sur­charge and to re­vise the gam­ing tax regime.

The bill amends the In­come Tax Act to al­low, from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, ex­emp­tion of in­come de­rived from a T&T res­i­dent’s ap­proved de­ferred an­nu­ity plan which ma­tures be­tween the per­son’s age of 50 to 70 years.

Any sum re­ceived when an ap­proved pen­sion fund plan or an ap­proved de­ferred an­nu­ity plan is sur­ren­dered be­fore the date of re­tire­ment/ma­tu­ri­ty shall still be sub­ject to tax.

The bill clar­i­fies that the ini­tial reg­is­tra­tion fee for the Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge is a one-time fee to be paid on a per-land­lord ba­sis, ir­re­spec­tive of the num­ber of premis­es be­ing rent­ed out by the land­lord. An­oth­er change would al­low land­lords to claim a tax cred­it on their an­nu­al in­come tax. The cred­it would ap­ply to pay­ments they make to­ward their tax bill for that year, up to the full amount owed.

A fur­ther sec­tion would al­low com­pa­nies that are land­lords to claim a tax cred­it on their an­nu­al in­come tax. The cred­it would ap­ply to pay­ments they make to­ward their tax bill for that year, up to the full amount owed.

Oth­er claus­es al­low the Fi­nance Min­is­ter to amend the list of per­sons/en­ti­ties ex­empt from the Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge, and may al­so ex­empt in­sti­tu­tions from pay­ment of the elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge.

The bill re­vis­es the gam­ing tax regime on amuse­ment games op­er­at­ed on premis­es, in­clud­ing elec­tron­ic roulette de­vices. It would pre­scribe sep­a­rate quar­ter­ly rates of tax for all amuse­ment games, re­quire quar­ter­ly pay­ment, pro­vides spe­cial pay­ment rules where a li­cence is grant­ed af­ter the com­mence­ment of a quar­ter, and pro­vide for re­funds where tax was over­paid in 2026

Changes will al­so be made to the Prison Ser­vice Act, Fire Ser­vice Act and Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the cal­cu­la­tion of of­fi­cers’ su­per­an­nu­a­tion ben­e­fits.

The Ship­ping Act will al­so be amend­ed to in­crease the fine for hav­ing more pas­sen­gers on a pas­sen­ger ship than al­lowed by a Pas­sen­ger Ship Safe­ty Cer­tifi­cate.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed the 62,050 re­cip­i­ents

Pub­lic Ser­vices’ As­so­ci­a­tion - about 18,000 work­ers Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers’ Union - 20,000 work­ers

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion - 15,000 work­ers

T&T De­fence Force - 6,000 work­ers

Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union - 1,300 work­ers

Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union - 900 work­ers

West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers - 850 work­ers