President of the Amusement Gaming Association (AGA) Russel Bahadoorsingh is accusing Minister of Finance Colm Imbert of presenting misconceptions and misinformation during his winding up speech of the budget debate in the Parliament on Thursday.
Bahadoorsingh was the one referenced to as representing on September 5, 2017 at the Joint Select Committee on Gambling Control Bill (2016).
In that meeting, Bahadoorsingh said he gave testimony evidence about amusement games in T&T.
“It was pellucidly clear that Minister Imbert was not prepared to listen to our position but instead was stubbornly handcuffed to his preconceived incorrect ideas,” Bahadoorsingh said.
He added that from the allegations made by Imbert. the AGA questioned the basis for Imbert’s statement.
“For example where is the data to support there being 5000 bars in T&T as the budget statement indicated? The AGA challenges the minister to provide the facts on this issue,” he said.
Imbert said the Ministry of Finance should be collecting $60 million but the actual figures is around $8 million, Bahadoorsingh said.
“Therefore the problem is collection and enforcement of existing taxes not 100 per cent increase on the industry. Will those persons who are not presently paying the low tax rate now pay a higher tax? The incompetence of the collection and enforcement will not be solved with an increase in taxes,” he said.
Bahadoorsingh said bars are owned by the local small man, “What’s going to happen when all these local small businesses cannot afford to continue to function as a result of the increased in taxation. The increase in taxation will result in employee layoffs.”
He added that it should be noted that the way that bars are regulated under the liquor license they have to pay the gaming machine taxes before they get licenses.
“What is needed was proper enforcement of the existing taxes to those that are not compliant to meet the required tax amount,” Bahadoorsingh said.
“If the minister had meaningful discussions with the AGA we would have been able to enlighten him on the proper way to enforce the existing tax process instead of increasing taxes which we believe will only destroy the industry and lead to lower tax collection and force people to illegally operate their machines. However, we remain open to dialogue,” he said.