PORT OF SPAIN – The Trinidad and Tobago government Tuesday denied that it had planned to withhold millions of dollars in value added tax (VAT) refunds to businesses after an un-named accounting firm issued a statement to its clients indicating such a move.
Minister of Finance Minister Colm Imbert, speaking at a virtual news conference, said that the firm had “misrepresented” an earlier statement issued by his ministry regarding the payment of the refund and announced that so far nearly half a billion dollars had been processed for refund by the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR).
Imbert said that the BIR had also advised that on May 26 it had “processed, printed bonds totalling TT$280 million . . . which is what they have done today which brought the total up to TT$449.3 million”.
“I just want to make it crystal clear that nobody’s VAT bonds are being withheld because they may owe small amounts of taxes. That is a misunderstanding that was put into the system inadvertently by a private accounting firm.
“I want to clear that up. People are getting their VAT bonds and if there is a liability in the system it is just deducted from the bond and then they can query that and resolve that issue as well in due course.”
Imbert said that the bonds were “fully encashable, fully tradeable at the commercial banks and the rate 3.3 per cent over a three year period”.
Imbert said that the banks have assured the government that they were prepared to cash in the bonds at 100 cents on the dollar.
“So people if they need cash, they can cash in these bonds right away with the commercial banks and get their full amount,” he added.
Imbert said that while he would not blame the accounting firm for its statement, it should have nonetheless printed the statement from the Ministry of Finance verbatim, adding that its circular to its clients “left out the most important line”.
“That line was any liabilities that remain outstanding would be deducted from the amount due before bonds are issued,” Imbert said. He noted that “by leaving that out, any person who received that circular from that accounting firm could be led to believe that unless and until you paid all your taxes you would not get any VAT refunds”.
The government has been paying out the VAT refunds as part of the efforts to reboot the local economy following the lockdown of the country as part of the efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (CMC)
