PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Express - The revenues that Trinidad and Tobago collects from energy taxes could be significantly higher than what it is currently but companies under-report revenue and sometimes, government doesn’t even collect the taxes, local energy consultant Anthony Paul claimed yesterday.
“We are not managing our resources. For starts, we are not giving contracts well. We are not setting the right tax rate. We aren’t even collecting the taxes. And now we aren’t even spending the money we collect well,” he told reporters at a media conference hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Local Content Chamber and the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) at the boardroom of the Trinidad and Tobago Group of Professionals Centre Building, Fitzblackman Drive, Woodbrook.
Or if they are collecting, they are collecting those taxes late, like when Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar received a US$159 million cheque from BP in 2011 for outstanding payments from 2001 to 2006, he said.