Tickets, taxes and the rising cost of living

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

From Oc­to­ber 13 last year to Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment im­ple­ment­ed a list of close to 40 tax mea­sures, which in­clud­ed dou­bling and tripling ex­ist­ing fines and fees to gen­er­ate bil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue.

In those 81 days, the Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced a sweep­ing pack­age of leg­isla­tive re­forms to in­crease traf­fic penal­ties due to de­te­ri­o­rat­ing dri­ving be­hav­iour and per­sis­tent­ly high road fa­tal­i­ties. It al­so in­tro­duced new tax­es and in­creased fees and fines on ex­ist­ing mea­sures to strength­en gov­er­nance, en­sure greater fair­ness, and cre­ate rev­enue streams.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so warned that fail­ure to com­ply with cer­tain laws could land peo­ple in jail.

From or­di­nary cit­i­zens, the work­ing class, busi­ness own­ers, em­ploy­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, farm­ers, hunters, in­sur­ance firms, banks, restau­rants, bar op­er­a­tors, land­lords, mo­torists, and non-na­tion­als, the mea­sures went in­to ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­liv­ered a $59.3 bil­lion 2026 fis­cal pack­age months ear­li­er.

How are cit­i­zens far­ing with new fees, and what are the new penal­ties?

For the av­er­age cit­i­zen, tax­es over the past two months have crept up in small ways—rent in­creas­es, traf­fic fines, and a new price for their favourite al­co­holic bev­er­age.

For La Hor­quet­ta/Ari­ma taxi dri­ver Steven Ram­bert (not his re­al name), since the Gov­ern­ment im­ple­ment­ed a slew of in­creas­es for traf­fic of­fences in Jan­u­ary, he had to pay a $1,100 tick­et for an il­le­gal dri­ve.

The tick­et was the sec­ond Ram­bert had re­ceived in the 30 years he had been dri­ving.

The first was a $1,000 tick­et for fail­ing to trans­fer a ve­hi­cle dur­ing a road­block ex­er­cise.

Ram­bert, a fa­ther of two, paid an at­tor­ney $2,000 and won the case af­ter the mag­is­trate was told that the trans­fer could not be made due to an er­ror in the li­cens­ing of­fice sys­tem.

He said re­tain­ing an at­tor­ney cost him more than the tick­et.

If he is tick­et­ed a third time, Ram­bert said it would be cheap­er to pay the tick­et than hire a lawyer to han­dle the case.

Ply­ing his trade for decades, Ram­bert, 50, said that five years ago he had con­sid­ered him­self a mid­dle-in­come earn­er.

“I worked for dou­ble-dig­it fig­ures at the end of the month.”

He was able to pay his mort­gage, bills, and stock his cup­boards with items.

That has since changed.

Ram­bert com­plained that with thou­sands of peo­ple los­ing their jobs in re­cent times, few­er peo­ple have been trav­el­ling.

“If I make $300 a day, that is plen­ty. And bet you every month I have to fix some­thing in my ve­hi­cle be­cause of the de­plorable road con­di­tions. I al­so have to fill my gas tank with this mon­ey. So when you think about it, I’m go­ing home with next to noth­ing.”

Ram­bert said he now con­sid­ers him­self a low-in­come earn­er, stat­ing that he has been falling be­hind in his mort­gage pay­ments and bills.

He wants to pay off the $70,000 he owes on his house, but ad­mit­ted that the sit­u­a­tion “is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult right now.”

He said his com­mon-law wife left her per­ma­nent job at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal to work at a pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tion, on con­tract, hop­ing to get a bet­ter salary.

“That didn’t work out. She’s mak­ing less mon­ey as a short-term con­tract work­er, on­ly to have re­grets.”

Sin­gle fa­ther Kevin Ever­glade (not his re­al name) has turned to sell­ing il­le­gal drugs to make ends meet. It is a de­ci­sion that has al­ready land­ed him in le­gal trou­ble.

He told Guardian Me­dia that af­ter sur­viv­ing on a $4,200-a-month jan­i­to­r­i­al salary for al­most a decade, he start­ed break­ing the law by traf­fick­ing drugs last year near his Laven­tille home to pro­vide for his chil­dren.

From his low-in­come earn­ings, he pays a health sur­charge and NIS con­tri­bu­tions. He al­so jug­gles buy­ing gro­ceries, pay­ing bills, and send­ing his daugh­ters to school.

Last month, his salary took a fur­ther hit when the Gov­ern­ment in­creased NIS con­tri­bu­tions.

He re­ceived $42.10 less in his last pay pack­et, which was a hard blow for him.

“Is on­ly pres­sure and stress all around. Things get four times hard­er un­der this Gov­ern­ment for my fam­i­ly. And it’s not just me alone. You hear­ing peo­ple say they are strug­gling with all the mea­sures they have been shov­ing down peo­ple’s throats. Peo­ple are not get­ting time to breathe. It’s just one thing af­ter an­oth­er. It’s just too much,” Ever­glade com­plained.

Af­ter the 2026 bud­get was pre­sent­ed, Ever­glade, 52, no­ticed food prices start­ed to soar de­spite a re­duc­tion in Val­ue Added Tax on some items.

“It’s not just one item in the gro­cery go­ing up...it’s every­thing. This has been putting a big­ger strain on poor peo­ple’s pock­ets.”

Last month, Ever­glade went look­ing for a new job but came back emp­ty-hand­ed.

“Busi­ness own­ers just don’t have the mon­ey to take on ad­di­tion­al work­ers. The de­mand for em­ploy­ment is grow­ing, and jobs are hard to come by. Peo­ple have to con­sid­er them­selves lucky if they get em­ploy­ment.”

Hav­ing hit hard times, Ever­glade said he took what he con­sid­ered the eas­i­est way out by sell­ing mar­i­jua­na to help sup­ple­ment his in­come and im­prove his stan­dard of liv­ing.

“I wasn’t proud of what I did, and it land­ed me in trou­ble.”

Ever­glade was ar­rest­ed by the po­lice and fined $15,000. By March 6, Ever­glade has to pay the fine in full, but is $8,000 short.

He said he is go­ing to ask the court for more time to raise the cash.

Among the hard­est hit were bar own­ers, with the im­po­si­tion of a 100 per cent ex­cise du­ty on al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts, the dou­bling of gam­ing tax­es, and a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in bar li­cence fees, which forced some to shut their doors last month.

Rum and spir­its in­creased from $79.25 to $158.50, beer from $5.14 to $10.28 by grav­i­ty, and cig­a­rettes from $5.26 to $10.52 per pack of 20.

Re­tail­ers’ or bar li­cences al­so jumped from $1,800 to $9,000.

The fee to op­er­ate an amuse­ment gam­ing ma­chine in­creased by just over 300 per cent, mov­ing from $6,000 to $25,000 a year.

Start­ing on April 1, all amuse­ment gam­ing tax re­turns must be filed through a dig­i­tal plat­form.

An­nu­al tax­es on elec­tron­ic roulette de­vices al­so sky­rock­et­ed from $120,000 to $200,000 per ma­chine.

Hav­ing strug­gled to keep their bars afloat af­ter be­ing crip­pled by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, many small own­ers, un­able to pay the fees and tax­es, shut their doors.

A list cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia claimed that around 30 es­tab­lish­ments had stopped op­er­at­ing.

Late last month, man­u­fac­tur­ers were thrown in­to a tail­spin when the State-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) im­posed a 77 per cent in­crease in nat­ur­al gas prices, from US$3 to US$5.30 per MMB­tu.

The news prompt­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) to ad­vise NGC that the price hike could squeeze busi­ness­es al­ready bur­dened by high­er elec­tric­i­ty costs, NIS con­tri­bu­tions, and con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion fees im­posed at the be­gin­ning of this year.

A sur­charge of 0.05 per kWh for com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers was al­so in­sti­tut­ed, which could earn $269 mil­lion in rev­enue for the State.

TTMA al­so point­ed out that bev­er­age man­u­fac­tur­ers us­ing PET bot­tles were sub­ject­ed to a five per cent tax on PET pre­forms, which is hav­ing a pro­found im­pact on pro­duc­tion costs.

TTMA wrote NGC, call­ing for the price of nat­ur­al gas for light in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers or non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ers to be­gin at US$4 per MMB­tu, fol­lowed by an an­nu­al in­crease of about four per cent over three years through 2028.

Late last month, Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed (TCL) an­nounced a 15 per cent hike in the ce­ment price, ef­fec­tive from Feb­ru­ary 9, due to high­er pro­duc­tion costs linked to NGC’s price ad­just­ment.

This move by TCL is ex­pect­ed to have a sig­nif­i­cant knock-on ef­fect on con­struc­tion costs go­ing for­ward.

Among the steps tak­en was a three per cent in­crease in NIS con­tri­bu­tions for em­ploy­ees and em­ploy­ers in 2026 and 2027; land­lords be­ing taxed for the first time on their rent; in­creas­es in the cost of pass­ports, firearm li­cences, food han­dler’s badges, and birth cer­tifi­cates; high­er elec­tric­i­ty rates for com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers; steep­er tax­es on gam­ing ma­chines; restau­rants and home­own­ers pay­ing more for 100-pound LPG cylin­ders; and mo­torists with ex­pired dri­ver’s li­cences fac­ing harsh­er penal­ties for re­new­al.

The Gov­ern­ment not­ed that these ini­tia­tives were im­per­a­tive.

Late last month, the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so pro­posed a five per cent trans­fer fee on Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion prop­er­ties and a ten per cent fee on trans­ac­tions in­volv­ing the sale of its prop­er­ties, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar had en­dorsed.

The news sparked out­rage among home­own­ers, caus­ing Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee to say the pol­i­cy was un­der dis­cus­sion.

Dur­ing the height of the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son, lo­cal artistes, band­lead­ers, and fete pro­mot­ers were asked on Feb­ru­ary 9 by the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion to pay their re­quired tax­es.

Pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Ains­ley King, promised to ad­dress this tax is­sue af­ter the Car­ni­val sea­son.

From March 1, all land­lords would be re­quired to pay a one-time $2,500 reg­is­tra­tion fee to the Board of In­land Rev­enue by May 30.

Fail­ure to reg­is­ter with the BIR can re­sult in a $250,000 fine plus three years’ im­pris­on­ment for land­lords.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so im­posed a 2.5 per cent sur­charge on land­lords earn­ing up to $20,000 in an­nu­al rental in­come, while those earn­ing above that thresh­old will be taxed at 3.5 per cent.

For an in­di­vid­ual, the re­vised penal­ty for not fil­ing is $1,000 every six months.

Cor­po­ra­tions would in­cur a $2,500 fee every six months they lapse.

This mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide $70 mil­lion in rev­enue.

Freight con­tain­er pro­cess­ing fees jumped from $525 to $1,050, while the ex­am­i­na­tion fee for a 20-foot con­tain­er by Cus­toms and Ex­cise has moved from $375 to $750.

The cost to ex­am­ine a 40-foot con­tain­er is now $1,050, com­pared to $525 pre­vi­ous­ly charged.

Dou­bling these Cus­toms and Ex­cise fees would yield an ad­di­tion­al $1 bil­lion for the gov­ern­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so in­tro­duced a 0.25 per cent As­set Levy on com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies.

These in­sti­tu­tions must file an­nu­al re­turns, with penal­ties ap­plied for late sub­mis­sions.

The levy en­sures large fi­nan­cial en­ti­ties make a fair and pro­por­tion­ate con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al rev­enue.

The Board of In­land Rev­enue will be em­pow­ered to en­force com­pli­ance.

This levy is ex­pect­ed to con­tribute $575 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, elec­tric ve­hi­cles with a cost, in­sur­ance, and freight (CIF) val­ue ex­ceed­ing $400,000 will now at­tract a ten per cent cus­toms du­ty, a 12.5 per cent VAT, and a tiered mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax.

Giv­en the cur­rent de­mand, this ini­tia­tive would con­tribute an ad­di­tion­al $40 mil­lion in rev­enue.

Un­der the amend­ed Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic Act, dri­vers ar­rest­ed for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence (DUI) would now face a fine of up to $24,000 for the first of­fence and up to $45,000 for the sec­ond.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the first con­vic­tion of some­one found guilty of DUI was $12,000, and the fine for the sec­ond con­vic­tion was $22,000.

Ex­ceed­ing the speed lim­it by more than 31 kilo­me­tres per hour, which ini­tial­ly in­curred a fine of $3,000, has now been dou­bled.

Al­so, dri­ving with­out valid in­sur­ance has moved from a $5,000 fine to a $10,000 penal­ty.

Mo­torists with an ex­pired dri­ver’s per­mit for six months or less will in­cur a new re­new­al fee of $600.

Per­mits that ex­pired for three to five years will face a penal­ty of $3,500.

Based on a re­view of the amend­ed sched­ule, more than 60 in­di­vid­ual traf­fic of­fences have been dou­bled.

Da­ta from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice showed that for the first week since the roll­out of the in­creased traf­fic fines, 1,758 var­i­ous traf­fic tick­ets were is­sued.

For the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025, 1,682 tick­ets were hand­ed out to of­fend­ers, while in 2024, it was 1,688.

The Gov­ern­ment hopes to col­lect $575 mil­lion in re­turns from these fines and fees.

Guardian Me­dia sent a list of ques­tions via What­sApp to Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Eli Za­k­our, but he did not re­spond.