Budget 2027: 20 key measures announced by finance minister

The fol­low­ing are 20 pro­posed mea­sures in the 2027 Bud­get pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

In­creas­es in Core So­cial As­sis­tance Grants:

Rais­ing the Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Grant, Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grant, and Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant by $250 per month ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2027.

Cap on Car­ried-For­ward Cor­po­rate Loss­es:

Lim­it­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed busi­ness loss­es to a max­i­mum of 75 per cent of charge­able prof­its in any in­come year to gen­er­ate $430 mil­lion in rev­enue.

VAT on Re­mote and Dig­i­tal Ser­vices:

Stan­dard-rat­ing dig­i­tal ser­vices pro­vid­ed by non-res­i­dent for­eign com­pa­nies (such as stream­ing and dig­i­tal plat­forms) ef­fec­tive March 1, 2027, to yield $18 mil­lion.

High­er Un­em­ploy­ment Levy on Pe­tro­le­um Prof­its:

Rais­ing the Un­em­ploy­ment Levy on the tax­able prof­its of oil and gas com­pa­nies from 5 per cent to 8 per cent, bring­ing in an es­ti­mat­ed $155 mil­lion.

In­creased Per­son­al Al­lowance for Pen­sion­ers:

Rais­ing the tax-free per­son­al al­lowance for se­nior cit­i­zens and re­tired pub­lic ser­vants from $90,000 to $102,000 an­nu­al­ly, grant­i­ng $11 mil­lion in tax re­lief.

Res­i­den­tial Elec­tric­i­ty Sur­charge for High Us­age:

In­tro­duc­ing a sur­charge of 5 cents per kilo­watt-hour on res­i­den­tial pow­er con­sump­tion ex­ceed­ing 3,000 kWh per billing cy­cle to fund low-in­come util­i­ty re­lief.

Ex­cise Re­lief and Ad Val­orem Re­struc­tur­ing on Al­co­hol:

Re­duc­ing do­mes­tic ex­cise du­ties on al­co­holic bev­er­ages by 25 per cent and shift­ing cus­toms du­ties on im­port­ed al­co­hol to an ad val­orem val­u­a­tion sys­tem.

Ad­just­ment of Non-Res­i­dent With­hold­ing Tax­es:

In­creas­ing the with­hold­ing tax on dis­tri­b­u­tions to non-res­i­dent in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies from 8 per cent to 10 per cent, and on non-res­i­dent par­ent com­pa­nies from 3 per cent to 5 per cent.

Clos­ing the Man­age­ment/Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices Tax Loop­hole:

Amend­ing Sec­tion 50(1)(b) of the In­come Tax Act re­gard­ing pay­ments for re­mote ser­vices to non-res­i­dents, yield­ing an es­ti­mat­ed $300 mil­lion.

Dis­al­low­ing De­duc­tions Re­lat­ed to Tax-Ex­empt In­come:

Amend­ing Sec­tion 10 of the In­come Tax Act to ex­plic­it­ly de­ny ex­pense de­duc­tions in­curred while earn­ing tax-ex­empt in­come, gen­er­at­ing $75 mil­lion.

To­bac­co Dis­tri­b­u­tion Thresh­olds and Va­p­ing Reg­u­la­tions:

Clas­si­fy­ing com­mer­cial pos­ses­sion of 10,000 or more cig­a­rettes as pri­ma fa­cie dis­tri­b­u­tion, re­quir­ing li­cences for im­ports of 800+ cig­a­rettes, ban­ning pub­lic va­p­ing/sales to those un­der 21, and im­pos­ing a 20 per cent cus­toms du­ty on va­p­ing de­vices.

Con­ver­sion of Se­lect­ed Ze­ro-Rat­ed Items to VAT-Ex­empt:

Re­clas­si­fy­ing se­lect goods from ze­ro-rat­ed to VAT-ex­empt sta­tus to broad­en the tax net while main­tain­ing a ze­ro per cent VAT rate at the point of sale.

Manda­to­ry Elec­tron­ic Fil­ing via GEN­TAX:

Es­tab­lish­ing manda­to­ry dig­i­tal tax fil­ing through the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion’s GEN­TAX plat­form for all tax­pay­ers.

Penal­ty for Non-Fil­ing of VAT Re­turns:

In­tro­duc­ing a fine of $100 for every two months that a VAT re­turn re­mains out­stand­ing, gen­er­at­ing $5 mil­lion in rev­enue.

Dou­bled Penal­ties for False Cus­toms De­c­la­ra­tions:

In­creas­ing the max­i­mum penal­ty un­der Sec­tion 212 of the Cus­toms Act from $125,000 to $250,000 for false de­c­la­ra­tions.

In­creased For­eign Cur­ren­cy De­c­la­ra­tion Thresh­old:

Rais­ing the trav­eller in­bound/out­bound cur­ren­cy re­port­ing thresh­old from US$5,000 to US$10,000.

In­creased Fines for Em­ploy­er NIS Non-Com­pli­ance:

Rais­ing the max­i­mum fine on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion for em­ploy­ers fail­ing to re­mit Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions from $4,000 to $8,000.

For­eign In­vest­ment Act Mod­erni­sa­tion:

Sim­pli­fy­ing prop­er­ty/share ac­qui­si­tion rules for for­eign in­vestors up to US$100,000, ex­empt­ing CARI­COM na­tion­als from the con­sid­er­a­tion rule, and man­dat­ing dis­clo­sure of ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship.

Launch of Gov­ern­ment Sav­ings & Re­tail Bond Pro­grammes:

Of­fer­ing re­tail gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties in de­nom­i­na­tions start­ing at TT$1,000 and TT$5,000 in both TT and US dol­lars to de­moc­ra­tise in­vest­ing for small savers.

READY Youth In­tern­ship Pro­gramme:

Al­lo­cat­ing TT$2 mil­lion to launch the Re­al Ex­pe­ri­ence and De­vel­op­ment for Youth (READY) Pro­gramme, pro­vid­ing 1,300 sec­ondary school stu­dents (age 16+) with four-week paid va­ca­tion in­tern­ships car­ry­ing a TT$1,500 stipend.