Tag Archives: Stephen Kangal

Property Tax Bills Need Constitutional Majority

By Stephen Kangal
December 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseI am now convinced that the two draconian property tax bills No 23 and 24 of 2009 must receive the requisite constitutional majority before they can be legitimately passed in the House of Representatives on Friday 18 December without public input. These bills are clearly being introduced in clear defiance of the wishes of the majority of people of T&T. They also are geared to demonstrate sadistically who is the ultimate boss here in the face of rising and widespread dissent.
Continue reading Property Tax Bills Need Constitutional Majority

UNC Support for the Property Tax In the Manday Accord?

By Stephen Kangal
December 05, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Patrick Manning and Basdeo PandayPolitical observers are duty bound to pose the question, in the face of recent bizarre public posturing of the UNC towards the property tax (PT) whether non-opposition or neutrality towards the PT would appear to be a condition of the Manday Accord. In the post- budget debate the UNC, except for the MP for St. Augustine, has been lukewarm in its limited opposition to the PT even though its current and potential political support base stands to bear the brunt of the expected $7bn punitive revenue windfall.
Continue reading UNC Support for the Property Tax In the Manday Accord?

Foreign Affairs Ministry Responsible for Diplomatic Fiasco

By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
November 12, 2009

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Paula Gopee-Scoon
Paula Gopee-Scoon
From documented evidence available to me I can state categorically that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is solely responsible for the diplomatic furore involving a Saudi Arabian diplomat, Fawaz Alshubaili and ACP Raymond Craig at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. There is no need for any inquiry in this matter.
Continue reading Foreign Affairs Ministry Responsible for Diplomatic Fiasco

Can PM Manning Ever Get Anything Right?

By Stephen Kangal
November 05, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

TT CricketersWhen the ethnicity agenda gets in the way of PM Manning’s modus operandi, which is the rule, he is doomed to make faux pas after faux pas. He becomes a stranger to the stark multicultural reality that surrounds him. His groping in the dark Caucasian Minister of Sports is caught in the horns of an ethnicity dilemma. He dismisses the outstanding T&T Cricket Team as not winning anything in India. At the airport he merely “notes” the performance. He is a stoic only where cricket is concerned. This is tragic and blatant irrationality.
Continue reading Can PM Manning Ever Get Anything Right?

Satanic Verses, Biblical Violations and the Property Tax

By Stephen Kangal
October 26, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseI have already surrendered to Caesar what is Caesar’s by way paying his many fiscal dues and entitlements that are increasingly being levied on me. I retained on behalf of God what really is His. I proceeded to invest a large part of the remainder in a home that is in fact His temple. I foolishly thought I was par for the course. But here comes the cruel and inhumane, dimpled-cheeky tax-collector intent on reaping and extracting from the meek of the earth what he did not sow. This is in total violation and infringement of all New Testament, Koranic and Karmic principles.
Continue reading Satanic Verses, Biblical Violations and the Property Tax

Seismic Vibrations Radiating Beyond the Boundary of the IPL

By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
October 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

TT CricketersThat the Almighty God is a born Trinbagonian has been established irrefutably time and again. Connecting to Him via TSTT is billed as a local call in Caroni. I cannot say the same for elsewhere since I do not know.

Here is Mother T&T (Dharti Mata) fossilized and embedded in the rock of a creeping and arrogant administration. They daily unleash waves and waves of punitive fiscal measures against a people permanently under siege from the forces of evil and darkness. We are facing a bleak status quo and a cancelled future. But God does not and cannot sleep especially when Trinis are in trouble.
Continue reading Seismic Vibrations Radiating Beyond the Boundary of the IPL

Dark Clouds From the Property Tax Overshadowing Divali

By Stephen Kangal
October 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThe acquisition of profit-yielding immoveable property especially of land is alternatively referred to in divine terms as Dharti Mata. The accumulation of wealth (arth) that is regarded as a boon derived from and conferred by Lakshmi Mata consistent with the laws of good karma is pivotal to all the tenets underlying the practice of Hinduism. The home is a mandir to Hindus. Any attempt or perception of potential desecration or diminution of its sanctity of the shrine will be resisted by Bala (strength). There is a most powerful bonding and almost religious nexus existing between an owner-built home and its Hindu owner/occupants. That explains why land-based Indians generally are not on the move or highly migratory in habits.
Continue reading Dark Clouds From the Property Tax Overshadowing Divali

Proliferation of Fact and Fiction in the Property Tax Debacle

By Stephen Kangal – Caroni
October 07, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThis ill-conceived, thief-in-the night and fiscally obscene property tax is being driven and confused by a conflicting and contradictory interplay of the contending forces of fact and fiction. In one fell swoop all proud resident home-owners of T&T have been reduced to fictitious renters paying fictitiously high rents way beyond their (f)actual salaries in order to arrive at an artificial and fictitious annual taxable value (ATV) for one’s fictitiously rented home. They have even thrown in the factual two-month compensatory renting hiatus period to arrive at the fictitious, unreal ATV.
Continue reading Proliferation of Fact and Fiction in the Property Tax Debacle

Ministers Doing a Demolition Job on Finance Minister Tesheira

By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Karen Nunez-TesheiraIt is palpably unsettling to witness the pathetic display of Ministers in the Ministry of Finance (not for the first time), Minister Imbert and including Local Government Minister Hazel Manning attacking with full force the credibility and integrity of Finance Minister Tesheira’s “done deal” property tax. This tax reinforced by Finance Ministry vaulting- ambitious aspirants may very well hasten her imminent political waterloo because she has now been relegated to cold storage. She does not speak on her draconian fiscal measure any more. She has been muzzled.
Continue reading Ministers Doing a Demolition Job on Finance Minister Tesheira

Caroni Villagers Condemn Property Tax and Call for its Withdrawal

By Stephen Kangal
September 23, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseThe Caroni Assembly of Villagers during their meeting held on Tuesday evening at the Vishnu Boys College in Caroni condemned the proposed high level of property tax as being unprecedented, unduly harsh and oppressive in the taxation annals of T&T. It was held as being “punitive, disruptive, draconian, illegal and onerous in its implications” according to the text of the Resolution that was adopted unanimously at the end of the Public Forum, a copy of which is attached.
Continue reading Caroni Villagers Condemn Property Tax and Call for its Withdrawal