THE EDITOR: According to the finance minister, property tax is soon to be imposed on all citizens who own residential properties. I believe the formula used to calculate this proposed tax is very unfair and unreasonable to most citizens.
My reasons are as follows:
* People didn't build their residential properties for rent, but to be occupied by themselves and their immediate family.
* All residential properties are not income-earners or they would have been classified as "commercial properties."
* Extensions to one's property, done over the years, may have become incumbent to accommodate additional family members or to make the house more comfortable – not to derive any income from the property.
* Citizens may have built their properties with their last few dollars and are now surviving via pension, eking a living by cultivating and selling produce or depending on the goodwill of family and friends.
* At the time of building (which may have been decades ago) it would have cost much less than the present value being ascribed to these properties as a result of runaway inflation.
* It is patently unfair to come up with a rental value for a wholly residential property, since whatever formula is used to work out this value may now align this residential-purpose property to the formula used to assess commercial properties.
As I indicated earlier, residential properties were built or bought to live in and not to derive an income from.
With the reasons outlined above, it would be wise for Government to reconsider this proposed tax, reconsider and find some other means of fairly assessing the value of residential houses, and if this is not possible, simply throw this tax in the waste-basket.
WAHID HOSEIN
Chaguanas
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