Tancoo to Imbert: Stop gaslighting citizens over the PNM Property Tax
Colm Imbert’s recent claim at a PNM meeting that people were objecting to the Property Pax because they were somehow trying to hide property, is a deliberate attempt by the Minister of Finance to gaslight citizens. So says Oropouche West MP Dave Tancoo, who is the Opposition’s Shadow Minister of Finance and UNC Chairman.
Addressing the Parliament on March 15th, 2024, Imbert identified five (5) major objections received by his Ministry from homeowners. Four of those five objections dealt specifically with the basis of calculation of the tax – what Minister Imbert refers to as the Annual Rental Value (ARV).
According to Tancoo, “These objections could be classified as: inconsistent with expectations, illogical discrepancies, ambiguously determined, draconian and the 5th objection was that some persons received multiple valuations for the same property.”
There is now a famous photograph from the front page of a daily newspaper showing an elderly gentleman in front a very humble home with his assessment of an annual rental value of over $96,000.00 (or $8,000/month). “Obviously the structure was immensely and ridiculously overvalued, calling into question the very issues which Imbert said the country objected to”, says MP Tancoo.
The UNC Chairman contends that instead of dealing with the issues highlighted in the objections, Minister Imbert reduced the rates, but kept the same flawed basis of tax calculations and the same incorrect valuations. Now, because none of the five objections can even remotely fit his narrative, the Minister is trying to convince the population that objectors to the Property Tax are seeking to hide ill-gotten assets.
Tancoo asserts, “It does not get more PNM than that! This is a malicious attempt to gaslight the population and to attack the character of the thousands of homeowners who have clearly stated what their legitimate concerns are. Instead of treating with the specific objections raised, Colm Imbert is again seeking to misdirect public attention away from this PNM hate tax.”
MP Tancoo sends a clear message to the Government, saying, “I call on Imbert to tell the country why he refuses to consider their stated objections and concerns. Whether it is 3% or 1%, this Property Tax is ill-conceived, discriminatory and inequitable. And now that the Government knows this, to simply ignore the objections and to try to convince the population that your actions somehow address their concerns, when clearly it does not, is the classic definition of gaslighting and misdirection. Stop the con job. Stop the gaslighting. Scrap this tax now!”