Port-of-Spain – It took five months of hard battling by the government with the opposition in order to facilitate legislation for the Foreign Account Taxation Agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and the US. The vote in favour of the Tax Information Exchange Act now makes way for the country to become compliant with FATCA.
It was finally passed in the House of Representatives last Thursday evening with a 39-0 vote showing unanimous support from both sides.
“I finally beg to move, after many months – five months,” Finance Minister Colm Imbert said with a laugh of relief following the conclusion of the debate and final committee examinations of the legislation. Legislation was passed with amendments in several areas with the nod of approval from all 39 government and opposition MPs present. At least three Opposition votes had been required for passage.
The legislation now enables local financial institutions to report to the US Internal Revenue Service on accounts held by US clients in Trinidad and Tobago. This will be done via Trinidad and Tobago’s Board of Inland Revenue. The FATCA facility is part of US tax evasion law.
The legislation came to fruition in the Lower House almost at the eleventh hour of the deadline for approval which the US had recommended. The US had suggested passage by the last day of February.
Having crossed the first hurdle in the Lower House, the legislation must now be debated in the Upper House. This will take place this month, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said last week.
“It’s a foregone conclusion, we’ll get the Opposition’s support in the senate and therefore achieve the three fifth’s majority vote there. However, we’re very open-minded regarding the views on the Independent bench, since only two Independent senators had been on the Joint Select Committee whose report the House accepted,” said Al-Rawi.
Al-Rawi said the vast majority of amendments made to the bill were done by the Government “in the absence of the Opposition from debates during December last.”
The main amendment done just before the vote, and it concerned agreement banks would notify an account holder their sensitive information had been passed to the BIR and the US IRS.
The Opposition had suggested the account holder be notified 28 days before the information was sent to the BIR and IRS.
However, Imbert said the Treasury Solicitor and Law Association had said this would be contrary to the aim of the legislation.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley also said the government could not have agreed to that, since it would undermine the legislation and create costs for the taxpayer in the event the account holder chose to challenge it legally during the 28-day period.
“We’re not going to agree to that – it has consequences for the taxpayers,” Rowley added.
However, all sides eventually agreed the account information would be reported to the relevant authorities by September 30 of the year in question and the account holder would be notified, with one notice, four months later in the following January.
“The Opposition presented significant amendments and in the end, government gave us a version of what we sought – notification to the account holder. The government did well to be flexible,” said UNC MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie.
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar also expressed satisfaction each bank account holder subject to the FATCA legislation will be notified by their financial institution that their information will be transferred to the BIR for transmission to the US Department of Treasury.
“This provides account holders with a right to know and to make sure that correct information has been transferred,” Persad-Bissessar said.
Persad-Bissessar said Opposition members worked to ensure that citizens’ rights were better protected via amendments which were made to the legislation.
“The opposition has always maintained our commitment to passing good law, which is why we stood firm in our resolve that the bill be examined by a Joint Select Committee. During that process, several errors and conflicts were discovered and fixed,” she said.
She added: “As a result of the JSC’s work and important amendments submitted by the Opposition, we were able to pass a substantially amended and improved bill. It’s important that we all understand how these procedures are expected to operate, as the legislation changes the way banks operate locally.”
She said in the amended legislation neither the Minister of Finance nor any politician will have the right to request sensitive financial information from an account holder’s bank.
Business groups breathed a sigh of relief following passage of the legislation. In a statement the Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago said it was pleased both parties reached consensus.
"BATT is quite relieved that both parties came together to put the country's interest first on an issue of great national importance. BATT will now move on to the hard work of the FATCA implementation process and collaborate closely with the Board of Inland Revenue to operationalise the data-collection procedures in order to meet the September 30, 2017, reporting deadline to the US Internal Revenue Service," it added.
President of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association Gregory Aboud felt the 39-to-zero vote on the bill signified a "beginning of a new day of hope for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago".
Aboud added: "I think that the country has a more positive sense of hope when a bill is passed with 39 votes. It's the type of parliamentary behaviour that the country is crying out for and which our system of governance does to allow. In this case, the news comes at a time when the country is looking to its 41 elected representatives to do this very sort of collaboration on subjects which are related to our day-to-day difficulties, including traffic, crime, education, health and infrastructure."
President of the Chaguanas Chamber of Commerce Richie Sookhai was also relieved at the passage of the bill.
"We at the chamber were a bit worried about whether or not the opposition and the government were going to pass the bill. If it wasn't passed, it would have hampered the way we do business in Trinidad and Tobago. It would have caused the correspondent US banks to sever ties with us. Now that the bill is passed, we can still continue our relationship with correspondent US banks," he noted.
Chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce Gabriel Faria also praised the government.
Said Faria: "We want to commend the government and the opposition for finally ensuring that the bill was passed. We hope there are no further challenges with the bill, and we expect that it will move smoothly through the legislative process to be put into force, recognising that the reporting deadline is September 2017. We envision that the BIR, as the authority that will have to take action on this, would be positioned to take on its role by that time."

Port-of-Spain – US Treasury economic crime advisor John Murphy is currently assisting the government to fight money laundering and terrorism financing.
A statement issued last week by the US Embassy said this is part of the Embassy’s ongoing partnership with the government to build capacity in the security sector.
The Embassy explained the technical assistance which Murphy is providing to the government is based on an agreement signed between the US and Trinidad and Tobago last August.
The US Department of Treasury Office of Technical Assistance Economic Crimes Teams, funded by the Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, provides capacity and technical assistance in anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism procedures.
Murphy is a specialist in financial crimes. He started his work with the Office of Technical Assistance in 2012, with projects in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. More recently, he was team lead in Ghana and Jamaica.
Prior to his overseas work, Murphy was a subject matter expert-advisor for the US Department of Justice, Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in Washington DC.
He also serves as a law enforcement officer with the New York City Police Department, in both the Organized Crime Investigation Division and the Joint Organised Task Force.

Port-of-Spain – It was chaos at Piarco International Airport last Thursday evening for passengers arriving for Carnival from several international flights. Many grew restless and angry after having to wait for as long as five hours to clear Immigration due to an acute shortage of officers. The chaos reportedly continued into Friday.
Passengers waiting to clear Immigration stood for several hours, while others sat on suitcases, chairs or in some cases, on the floor.
A passenger from Toronto who arrived via Air Canada said he spent five hours trying to clear Immigration, claiming there were only two officers at the booths to deal with passengers.
“I spent almost as much time in your airport than I spent in the air reaching here from Canada. This is not a nice way to start my Trinidad Carnival experience,” he said. The majority of persons waiting to be cleared were tourists.
“There were huge arrivals with the majority being tourists coming for your Carnival,” he said, adding arriving passengers “became angry, frustrated and hungry.”
He added: “The situation was very chaotic and people jostled to get to the front of the line.”
Another passenger said he felt very embarrassed to be a Trini and hear the anger among the tourists.
“It was very embarrassing to come home to our international airport with guests and to be treated in this manner,” he said.
Among flights landing between 3 pm and 6 pm on Thursday were Air Canada, JetBlue from Fort Lauderdale, Copa Airlines from Panama City, Jet Blue from New York, Avianca from Panama City, Aero Mexico from Panama City, British Airways from St Lucia, Iberia from St Lucia and Caribbean Airlines from St Vincent.
Nigel Ferguson, Chairman of the board of directors of the Airports Authority said he has “absolutely no jurisdiction on what Immigration or Customs should or should not do.” The airports authority merely provides the facilities for Immigration to carry out their work, he said.
Ferguson added social media reports of angry visitors walking out of Customs without their luggage being checked were false, noting the problems at Immigration were not new.
“We have had meetings with Immigration and pleaded with them to improve the situation,” he said. Other airport officials confirmed the chaos.
One video of the chaos at the airport uploaded to social media noted: “Two officers working... Over 4 hours just to get through Immigration!!! Nah!!! Piarco and the Ministry of Tourism (sic) get a plan during Carnival time do better than this please!!! Please!!!”
However, the Ministry of National Security later issued a statement saying there was no shortage of immigration officers on duty on Thursday and Friday.
The Ministry said this was untrue and the crowding at the airport was nothing out of the ordinary, given the busy Carnival season.
"Immigration officials have noted that the increase in passenger arrivals is in part compounded by the arrival of several charter flights in addition to the regularly scheduled flights. Flights are coming in at the same time or very close together with hundreds of passengers disembarking from each flight,” it said.
The Ministry added the increase in arrivals due to national festivities, and the resultant longer waiting time for passengers, was not unique to Trinidad and Tobago. This happens in other international airports around the world, it said.
The Ministry said a full complement of Immigration officers was on duty at the airport.

Port-of-Spain – There is an international demand for Trinidad and Tobago's hot peppers, as by June this year more than one million pounds of peppers would have been exported.
This was revealed by Sharma Lalla, chief executive officer of Caroni Green Ltd, a State enterprise which was established in December 2013 and began operations in 2014.
At last week’s meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Land and Physical Infrastructure at the International Waterfront Centre, Port-of-Spain, Lalla explained Caroni Green's mandate is to bring idle or under-active utilised lands into production.
He lamented the poor contribution this country's agricultural sector is making to its Gross Domestic Product, but said there was room and opportunity to change this with collaboration and investment.
Lalla boasted of Caroni Green's track record of production and also that the company, for the first time since it was established, was making a profit.
He noted the company has not received any Government support since 2014.
"But despite those major constraints, I am very proud of the company's achievements," he said. He added in October 2016 the company's landmarks for the production of hot peppers was crossed at 500,000 pounds – a first for Trinidad and Tobago.
"We are now over 700,000 pounds and we expect that before June of this year we will cross the landmark of over one million pounds," he said.
He explained hot pepper was selected on the basis of bringing some relief to the foreign-exchange crunch.
He added that for the first time in the fiscal year, which ended on September 30, 2016, Caroni Green would have generated a profit and it expects to continue along these lines.
"We can make a much more significant contribution to the sector, but the authorities need to see that infrastructural development, investment in systems such as irrigation and so on, are way beyond the company's resources," he said.
"If as a country we make a determination that we want to see the sector grow, I think we have to make an appeal for some kind of further support to make it happen," he added.
Lalla cited statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations with respect to agricultural development to GDP among Caricom countries. Trinidad and Tobago is the lowest, having less than 0.8 percent; when there is Jamaica with seven percent; Guyana, 26 percent; and Canada with seven percent of GDP.
He said another important statistic is what has happened to the sector from 1990 coming forward, where Trinidad and Tobago is rated as the worst performing country among Caricom in that it had the highest reduction in contribution of agriculture to GDP.
"Our percentage from the time the measurement started to now, we've decreased by 76.5 percent and a significant portion of that is attributed to the decline of the sugar industry," he said.
He pointed out Jamaica's decline over the same period was a mere 2.5 per cent.
Lalla said this indicated Trinidad and Tobago had a very long way to go in terms of trying to capture some kind of comparative status among fellow-Caricom members.
He also noted it was the first time he was sitting with officials from the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation and the Agriculture Ministry (at the JSC), as he called for more collaboration.
Lalla said there was a need for a redefinition of roles of the various State enterprises, as there may be overlap and ineffective utilisation of resources.

Port-of-Spain – Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams last week called on religious organisations to observe a day of fast and prayer in the face of rising crime.
“In 2017 we want to turn around the crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago and I believe that prayer is a key component to lead us, the police in taking control,” Williams said.
Williams related he was in Laventille last week interacting with a community healing from loss of a member who was shot dead by police.
“We spent several hours in dialogue with the community to facilitate a way going forward,” Williams said, adding that crime was definitely on the decrease in Laventille since there was no murder reported from the area for February.
He noted that Laventille falls under the Port-of-Spain Division and reports indicate this division has the lowest number of murders in recent time.
He told the officers assigned to the Eastern Division that society places its trust in a Police Service that must operate in a professional manner.
“Policing is a noble profession,” he said.
Seventh Day Adventist pastor Clive Dottin said Williams has been acting for far too long and is deserving of the full, substantive position.
“You all know it is only I could say this and get away in the country,” he joked.
He added that the real commissioner of police is the Master above. He urged police not to ‘sell-out’ fellow police officers.
“Do not make the job of honest police officers hard or impossible, and put your own colleagues in a dangerous place,” he advised.
He also told police officers not to underestimate the ability of the youths in the communities, as they can easily be persuaded in the right track.
Spiritual Baptist Leader, Bishop Roger who also spoke at the inter-faith service made an appeal to the acting commissioner to bring back community policing.
He also called on the religious leaders and police to work hand in hand with the various village groups to prevent crime.
Father Glyn Jemmot of the Rio Claro RC Church asked the Eastern Division officers for forgiveness saying while they are making an attempt to reach the rural districts of Rio Claro and observe how the people live and to find out why there is crime in certain areas, the church and other religious bodies have failed in doing this.
Pastor Stephen Mahabir of the Open Bible Church in Rio Claro also addressed the congregation. He told police officers that the people are faced with a ‘Goliath’ in terms of crime, but the Biblical David, though a youth was able to defeat the giant because he had God on his side.
Imam Zainool Baksh called on the police and citizens to live good lives and adhere to the laws of the land.
“If you cannot obey the law made by man then you will not obey God’s laws,” he advised.

Port-of-Spain – Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha Satnarayan Maharaj last week said the Education Minister should be more concerned government schools are "failing" at academics than worrying about why Hindu schools did not take part in last Wednesday's School's Chutney Soca Monarch Competition.
He also made it clear parents decide if they want their children to participate in cultural events and not the SDMS.
At the National Carnival Schools Intellectual Chutney Soca Monarch Competition last Wednesday, Education Minister Anthony Garcia said he was saddened no Hindu schools were a part of the event.
"I want to ask our curriculum supervisors to visit these schools to ensure that they take part in some of these activities because this is an important part of our school curriculum. I would want to ensure that every one of our students has the opportunity of participating in our cultural traditions and in so doing being given an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to our society," Garcia said.
Maharaj felt there were other pressing matters for the minister to be concerned about.
"The whole thing about this is that the supervisors of schools, their prime purpose is to ensure that the schools deliver the curriculum. He is now reducing them to be messengers. They must go to investigate why this school didn't participate in a cultural event, which is not part of the curriculum," he said.
He added: "So I find that if I had to advise the minister, I would advise him to investigate why the government schools are failing in producing academic excellence and send his supervisors to investigate these schools – their failure to deliver the curriculum- rather than engage in something that is the prerogative of the parents.”
Maharaj accused Garcia of targeting the Hindu schools when there were other schools, like the Muslim and Presbyterian schools, which did not take part in the chutney competition.
He noted: "Participation in any cultural event is the decision of the parents, not the school. The parents will decide that they want their children to participate in the cultural activities that we organise, like the Baal Vikaas Festival or the Phagwa Festival, or whether they want to participate in any other festivity. This is a parental choice."