Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) has voiced se­ri­ous con­cern over the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed land­lord sur­charge an­nounced in the 2025 Na­tion­al Bud­get, warn­ing that the mea­sure could in­crease the cost of do­ing busi­ness across cen­tral Trinidad.

CCIC pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty recog­nis­es the po­ten­tial bur­den this tax could place on prop­er­ty own­ers and, by ex­ten­sion, on com­mer­cial ten­ants. He added that while the in­tent be­hind the mea­sure may be to strength­en na­tion­al rev­enue, the rip­ple ef­fects could be far-reach­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).