The pas­sage of the Fi­nance Bill 2025 through Par­lia­ment late Fri­day has sparked de­bate among the na­tion’s lead­ing econ­o­mists, as they weigh the gov­ern­ment’s need to in­crease rev­enue against the po­ten­tial fi­nan­cial bur­den on the av­er­age cit­i­zen.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo cham­pi­oned the Bill as a de­ci­sive step to­ward strength­en­ing gov­er­nance, mod­ernising out­dat­ed laws, boost­ing pub­lic safe­ty, and en­sur­ing fair­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tax sys­tem.

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon cau­tioned that while rev­enue gen­er­a­tion is im­por­tant, it must be bal­anced with ex­pen­di­ture con­trol and ef­fi­cien­cy im­prove­ments.