Imbert – Online property tax payment system ‘
Finance Minister Colm Imbert says his ministry is working on an online solution to assist property tax payments which will be identical to bank account transfer payments, as is done for WASA and T&TEC bills.
“We’re very close to a solution to this matter, I expect it to be imminent,” Imbert added.
He, however, couldn’t give a date for the start of the solution.
Imbert said the ministry was also working on additional solutions using credit and debit cards online. But he said because of the recent “behaviour of the Auditor General,” an online payment system was not so simple.
Imbert gave these details in the Senate yesterday while replying to urgent questions from Independent Senator Dr Paul Richards on property tax payment issues.
After long lines of citizens trying to pay the tax by the September 30 deadline, Richards asked if given the imminent deadline, additional payment options and locations would be made available to alleviate the problems.
Imbert said, “There would be no additional locations before September 30, although efforts are being made to expand the capacity of existing locations.”
However, Imbert explained that additional payment options were a “very complex matter, made even more complicated by the recent—I’ll use the word—‘behaviour’ of the Auditor General.”
Imbert said property tax is revenue.
“So unlike your water and electricity bills which we’re all accustomed to paying online, when the payment is remitted to the relevant statutory authority or even in the case of a phone bill—like Digicel, TSTT, etc—the financial institution deducts an appropriate percentage as a service charge for facilitating the transaction.”
He said unfortunately, under the Audit and Exchequer Act, there can be no deduction from revenue of a service charge.
“So what we’ve been looking at with respect to commercial banks is a system where they’ll act as a collector of revenue, so that someone would make an online payment, banks will collect those payments of property tax, record them appropriately, identify who paid for what, when and then remit the amount paid in full to the Treasury to go into the Consolidated Fund for it to be recorded as revenue,” Imbert said.
He said banks would then send a bill to the Finance Ministry for the service charge so that the payment of revenue must always be 100 per cent.
“There can be no deduction from it. That’s complication number one. Complication number two is that systems must be in place to ensure that payment of the property tax is properly recorded as revenue,” Imbert said.
“You’ll remember that the source of the problem—the impasse as it’s called by the media—between Finance Ministry officials, and now it appears also the Central Bank and the Auditor General, is a question of accurate recording of revenue.
“So what I’d not want to happen is a situation where people make their property tax payments online and it’s not properly recorded as revenue in the Consolidated Fund and then we’ll get another report from the Auditor General that will start another set of confusion and bacchanal,” he explained.
How it’ll work
Imbert said, “The process which we’re working on will be an online process. It’ll be virtually identical to the online payment like bank transfer of your utility bills, so that those persons who have the facility to use their bank account to make a bank transfer—as is now done with WASA and T&TEC—will be able to do that.”
Imbert said he didn’t want to give a precise start time at this point. He said just before yesterday’s Senate, he met technocrats working on the solution to ensure it’s properly recorded.
“There are two things that must happen: when the person pays the tax, they must get a receipt from the Board of Inland Revenue confirming they’ve paid. Because if you don’t get that, then you can end up in an argument and there might be even more confusion with respect to penalties and interest. So that’s issue number one that must be dealt with.
“Issue number two is a proper recording of the revenue in the Consolidated Fund. But we’re almost at the end of a solution that will deal with both so that when you pay online, you automatically get a receipt confirming payment which you can present to the BIR if there’s a query and it’ll be properly recorded as revenue.”
No word on extension
Richards asked if an extension is being considered after September 30. He cited the complexities Imbert spoke of, the fact that of the 400,00 eligible residential properties that will be taxed, valuation notices were issued for 175,000, the long lines at payment centres, plus Imbert’s uncertainty about when the online solution will begin. Richards said it was a sort of tacit admission that all the systems may not be in place for mass processing.
Imbert also replied to Independent Senator Sunity Maharaj’s question on whether the September 30 deadline applies to homeowners who have not yet received their notice of property tax assessment.
Imbert said a legal opinion from the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) and Treasury’s Solicitor General department stated that if the failure to pay the tax did not result from the taxpayer’s fault, then the person isn’t liable to penalties and interest.
Imbert explained that if they got an assessment using the old property tax rate of three per cent, that’s invalid. He said owners must get an assessment based on the new two per cent rate. He said if the BIR is unable to deliver a tax assessment notice to the taxpayer, the latter’s not at fault and won’t be subject to any penalties or interest.
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