Finance Bill receives President's assent

Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo. - File photo

PRESIDENT Christine Kangaloo has given her assent to the Finance Bill 2025. This is shown in the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette issue of December 25.

According to the gazetted notice, Kangaloo gave her assent on December 23. After the President assents to any piece of legislation, it is subsequently proclaimed into law.

The bill was passed in the House of Representatives on December 5 and then in the Senate on December 9.

Before its passage in the House, Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles said the bill would have the opposite effect of what it is intended to do – that is, make legislative changes to give effect to proposed policies laid out in the October 13 budget.

“A number of the measures are ill-conceived and are designed to inflict further pain on the people of TT. It is true to say that over the next couple of months, we will see that these measures will actually bring more hardship to the people of TT."

The Finance Bill was designed to implement measures contained in the 2025/2026 budget, which Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo presented in the House on October 13.

Tancoo announced measures such as an immediate increase in customs duties on rum, beer and cigarettes to help the government earn more revenues.

Other similar measures, such as increases in NIS, electrical surcharges on commercial and industrial customers and levies on commercial banks, are proposed to take effect from January 1, 2026.

The budget has a projected expenditure and revenue of $59.232 billion and $55.367 billion, respectively. The projected deficit is $3.865 billion.

The 2024/2025 budget, under the former PNM government, had a projected revenue, expenditure and fiscal deficit of $54.224 billion, $ 59.741 billion and $ 5.517 billion, respectively.

Tancoo's budget was pegged on oil and natural gas prices of US$73.25 per barrel and US$4.25 per mmbtu, respectively. Last year's budget was set on oil and gas prices of US$77.80 per barrel and US$3.59 per mmbtu, respectively.

On December 26, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil were trading at US$56.82 and US$60.74 per barrel, respectively. The budget's oil price has traditionally been pegged against the WTI price.

The natural gas price reported on December 26 was US$4.364 per mmbtu.