$50m for upgrades to primary schools
October 29, 2025
Guided by justice and charity: moral reasoning in times of political tension
October 29, 2025
By Dr Marlene Attzs, Economist
Email: marlene.attzs@gmail.com
Budget day was finally announced. The bell tolled at 1.30 p.m. on October 13, and the country readied itself for Minister Davendranath Tancoo’s maiden budget speech as Minister of Finance.
The new administration had assumed office in May 2025 inheriting both a fragile fiscal position and high public expectations. The Budget theme, T&T First: Building Economic Fairness through Accountable Fiscal Policies, set a hopeful tone: an appeal to equity, prudence, and national renewal.
Yet as the dust settles on the numbers, a deeper question emerges: can the 2026 Budget translate its language of fairness into real, felt improvement in people’s lives?
The fairness test
Minister Tancoo’s core message was that fairness must underpin fiscal policy—that the burden of adjustment should fall more on those able to carry it. To this end, several new revenue measures were announced.
The Asset Levy of 0.25 per cent on the assets of commercial banks and insurance companies is expected to yield roughly TT $575 million. The rationale is that these institutions have enjoyed high earnings and liquidity while ordinary depositors receive minimal returns.
However, banks may respond by increasing fees or tightening credit. That would raise borrowing costs for small firms and households—precisely the segments that fairness intends to protect.
Similarly, the Landlord Business Surcharge, which introduces a one-off $2,500 registration fee and a 2.5–3.5 per cent levy on annual rental income, seeks to formalise an informal sector and raise about $70 million in immediate receipts. But experience shows that landlords seldom absorb new taxes; costs are passed to tenants. Students and young families could face higher rents at a time when disposable income is already stretched.
Other measures—including the $0.05/kWh electricity surcharge for commercial and industrial users, the doubling of container-processing fees from $525 to $1,050, and increased excise duties on alcohol and tobacco—are projected to boost revenues but will ripple through prices. The cost of imported goods, food items, and consumer staples could all increase.
The workers we no longer see
Conspicuously, little was said about the CEPEP and URP workers (except that these Programmes no longer exist)—thousands of men and women who, for months, have found themselves without a source of income.
These are households where the main breadwinners are either barely making ends meet or not finding the ends at all. Their absence from the national conversation is troubling, given that these programmes have long served as a social buffer for low-income communities and a stabiliser during periods of economic slowdown.
A budget that champions fairness cannot afford silence on the plight of tens of thousands who remain outside the productive and social safety nets.
Revenue ambition vs implementation reality
Trinidad and Tobago’s challenge is not a shortage of revenue ideas, but what I often call an implementation deficit. Every new levy or tax depends on administrative machinery—systems, staff, and enforcement—that too often lags behind policy intent. Efforts to reform property taxes, modernise customs, or widen the tax base have repeatedly stalled on outdated laws and limited capacity.
Unless the government invests early in people and systems, the 2026 measures may yield far less than forecast. The Budget Speech projects $575 million from the Asset Levy, yet the Draft Estimates list only $420 million—a caution perhaps?
Meanwhile, the Draft Estimates of Revenue 2026 project $18.96 billion in borrowing, nearly double last year’s figure. Borrowing can fund growth, but it also raises questions about debt sustainability, fairness to future generations, and pressure on foreign reserves.
The real test is whether this debt builds capacity to repay or merely kicks the economic can further down the road.
Hidden costs in the details
Several measures reveal trade-offs that deserve more public discussion. The loosening of age limits for imported used vehicles—from three to six years for private cars and seven to ten years for light commercial—may indeed make car ownership appear more affordable in the short term.
But affordability can be deceptive. We may be buying a lemon—an old car stamped with a new registration plate that, within months, demands costly repairs.
The reality is that we know little about the maintenance history, mileage tampering, or accident record of many of these used imported vehicles. Beyond the personal risk to buyers, the change in age limit for ‘roll on, roll off’ cars also heightens demand for foreign exchange and raises environmental costs.
Older vehicles emit more pollutants, require more maintenance, and add to congestion. What looks like consumer relief today could, in time, burden both household finances and the public purse through road maintenance and healthcare challenges linked to air pollution.
From promise to proof
When the Budget bell tolled on October 13, it marked more than the start of a new fiscal year—it signalled a moment of reckoning for a government elected on the promise of fairness.
The measures announced show intent and even courage, but intent without delivery is just ambition dressed as policy. What matters now is execution, transparency, and the courage to confront the unintended costs that fairness itself can create. That’s my point of view!
