Trinidad 2020 Budget Highlights

(Trinidad Guardian) Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert read the 2020 Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yester­day.

The theme of the 2020 Bud­get was ‘Sta­bil­i­ty, Strength and Growth’.

The Min­is­ter an­nounced an es­ti­mat­ed rev­enue of $47.749 bil­lion and to­tal ex­pen­di­ture of $53.036 bil­lion, re­sult­ing in a fis­cal deficit of $5.287 bil­lion.

The bud­get was based on a pro­ject­ed oil price of US$60 and a gas price of US$3 per MMB­tu.

The high­est al­lo­ca­tion went to Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing, amount­ing to $7.5 bil­lion, with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty get­ting $6.044 bil­lion and Health be­ing al­lo­cat­ed $6.084 bil­lion.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly was al­lo­cat­ed $2.283B. This in­clud­ed $2.033B for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $231.6M for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture and $18M for the URP To­ba­go.

Here are some high­lights of the min­is­ter ad­dress.

BUD­GET HIGH­LIGHTS

* No more need for life cer­tifi­cates to be pre­sent­ed to the Trea­sury by pen­sion­ers who pos­sess com­put­erised birth cer­tifi­cates.

* Elim­i­na­tion of ar­rival forms at air­ports.

* Re­moval of all tax­es and du­ties on LED bulbs for five years.

* In­crease in­vest­ment tax cred­it for en­er­gy com­pa­nies from 20% to 25% to stim­u­late ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment in­vest­ment from Jan 1, 2020.

* On-the-job-train­ing in­crease stipends by 10% and in­crease in­take for the pro­gramme to 8000 trainees from De­cem­ber 1, 2019

* In­crease of min­i­mum wage from $15 to $17.50 per hour from De­cem­ber 1, 2019, to ben­e­fit 194,000 per­sons

* In­crease in per­son­al goods that can be im­port­ed with­out in­cur­ring Cus­tom du­ties from $3,000 to $5,000 from De­cem­ber 1, 2019.

* In­crease in tax al­lowance from $3M to $6M for cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship of na­tion­als in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, cul­ture, arts, cul­ture, au­dio­vi­su­al pro­duc­tion, the lo­cal fash­ion in­dus­try.

* To amend Cor­po­ra­tive So­ci­eties Act to in­crease the lim­it of $5,000 to trans­fer of shares to an­oth­er per­son on death of a mem­ber, to $50,000.

* In­crease wages of CEPEP work­ers by 15% and in­crease fees paid to CEPEP work­ers by 15% from De­cem­ber 1, 2019.

* In­crease wages of URP work­ers by 15% from De­cem­ber 1, 2019.

* Dai­ly-paid work­ers in Pub­lic Ser­vice be el­i­gi­ble for min­i­mum Pub­lic Ser­vice pen­sion of $3,500/month. This will be a con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion plan. It will take ef­fect in 2020.

* Ban im­por­ta­tion of sty­ro­foam in the food in­dus­try and to ter­mi­nate use of plas­tic wa­ter bot­tles in gov­ern­ment of­fices from Jan­u­ary 1, 2020.

* Re­moval of all tax­es and du­ties on all in­puts for farm­ers. Farm­ing to be­come a tax-free in­dus­try.

* $3 bil­lion in in­ter­est-bear­ing gov­ern­ment bonds to reg­is­tered VAT busi­ness­es to meet their VAT ar­rears. Tenure of 5 years and in­ter­est of 1.5% per an­num.

CEPEP Coastal Clean Up at Carat Shed Beach

* New op­er­a­tor for the Magde­le­na Grand in To­ba­go. Ho­tel to be re­brand­ed un­der the new op­er­a­tor.

* 25 bus­es will be on roads by De­cem­ber 2019 pow­ered by CNG.

* T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty will be­come op­er­a­tional in fis­cal 2020.

* Point Fortin high­way sched­uled to be com­plet­ed at the end of 2020.

* Curepe In­ter­change to be com­mis­sioned by March 2020.

* New li­cense plates for more se­cu­ri­ty and to pre­vent fraud.

* Park­ing me­ters in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do.

* Traf­fic tick­ets to be paid through TTPost, free­ing up the courts from the bur­den of tick­et fines.

* Two new state-of-the-art fast fer­ries in 2020.

* Restora­tion of Pres­i­dent’s House is near­ing com­ple­tion and will soon be oc­cu­pied by the pres­i­dent.