Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
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THE EDITOR: The public, unscientific and unfounded notion/assertion by Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira that “the majority of Trinbagonians support the Property Tax Bill’ flies in the face of the slightest scintilla of common sense and intellectual rationality.
Continue reading Tyranny of the minority in T&T
By Stephen Kangal
December 27, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
Here was Minister Colm Imbert at his arrogant worse spewing loud and rapid dragon-fire and non-supportable and baseless brimstone in the House as he wallowed in half-lies, untruths and innuendoes in his PT speech on Monday. As I sat in the public gallery and was inflicted with this spectacle, I agonized loudly: How could Mr. Speaker allow his House to be brought into such disdainful odium and total disrepute in the eyes of citizenry by sanctioning Imbert’s loud shouting, his comic antics, his peacock arrogance and his demeaning undiplomatic remarks directed at the Opposition members? His behaviour was nothing short of “waganry” at its sordid and obscene worst.
Continue reading Imbert’s Nonsensical Fire and Brimstone
By Stephen Kangal
December 20, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
As a participant in the peaceful, legal and orderly picket conducted on the northern precincts of Parliament on Friday 18 during the debate on the controversial property tax bills I can say categorically that these armed to the teeth riot squad policemen acted on pre-meditated decisions and intentions to arrest Comrade David Abdullah. They in fact indulged in an act of unnecessary provocation while the picket was proceeding smoothly and being conducted in a most orderly, peaceful and legal manner to create a basis to arrest him.
Continue reading Riot Squad Provoked The Picketing Fracas
By Sean Douglas
December 20 2009 – newsday.co.tt
DIEGO Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley believes that people from all walks of life are angry at the Government’s property tax which they blame on squandermania. Rowley was speaking on Friday in the Lower House on two bills to bring the new tax, the Property Tax Bill 2009 and the Valuation of Land (Amendment) Bill 2009.
Continue reading Rowley hits property tax
By Stephen Kangal
December 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
I 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
By Stephen Kangal
October 26, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
I 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
By Stephen Kangal
October 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
The 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
By Stephen Kangal – Caroni
October 07, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
This 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
By Raffique Shah
October 04, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
THE battle over Government’s proposed property tax has intensified. On the one hand, the vast majority of citizens, civic organisations and NGOs have been very vocal in their bid to have government reverse “this oppressive new tax that will pauperise the working and middle classes.” On the other side, the Government has undertaken a media campaign to convince people that the tax is not a new imposition, nor will it be harsh and oppressive.
Continue reading Getting our priorities right
By Stephen Kangal
October 01, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
It 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