‘Not true!’
Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Christopher Sinckler, is refuting claims that the provisions within the Barbados Revenue Authority (Amendment) Bill are unconstitutional.
The amendment will require persons to get a Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) tax clearance certificate for all the taxes administered by the BRA from the Revenue Commissioner when seeking to sell land. However, while admitting that this would be new, Sinckler, as he piloted the debate on the Bill in the House of Assembly yesterday morning, queried if it was really a step away from what currently existed.
“The constitutionality of the Bill, it will be said, that the Government in allowing the BRA Commissioner or the BRA to issue tax clearance certificates is causing, or likely to cause some persons Mr. Speaker Sir, individual taxpayer from the benefit of and right of disposing their property under some section of the Constitution, or enjoyment of their property, because you attach the need to have a BRA tax clearance certificate in order to do so. Now I ask myself the question, is this really such a strange practice in the administration of business in Barbados?” he stated.
With that in mind, he reminded the Lower House that at present, to dispose of land, a person has to ensure that the water bill is up to date, and does not have any arrears on it. Should that not be the case, he stated, they are prohibited from selling the land until that they have cleared the encumbrance.
“In fact, if you don’t and you sell the land, for example if you have a less than diligent attorney-at-law and the process goes through, the person who buys the land becomes the person responsible, I believe, for the liability. And then they would have to go and hunt down the people who sold them the land in order to ensure that they can protect title of the sale and get on with the business, because the Water Authority has a charge on that land,” Sinckler said.
The Finance Minister then used the example of the State-owned National Housing Corporation (NHC), which at one time owed the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) monies for deductions from employees’ salaries, which were not remitted to the NIS. The NIS, he said, used the provisions of the National Insurance and Social Security Act to get a certificate of judgement in the courts against the NHC, so that each time the NHC wanted to dispose of any of its fixed assets it had to ask the NIS, and seek to get a release from them in order to sell the property.
“It was not unconstitutional for that to happen, but apparently it seems as though it would be unconstitutional for the Revenue Commissioner to be able to be given, under the law, the authority,” he said.
Meanwhile Sinckler, referring to the Insolvency Act, explained that if a company goes into receivership or insolvency and it has a number of creditors and it is disposed of, the Supervisor of Insolvency, acting under the legislation and in conjunction with the court, is given the responsibility of determining the ranking of the creditors; and he noted that it is now known as standard practice in law and business that liabilities to the Crown are settled first.
“There is nothing unconstitutional about that… The fact is it does not abridge any constitutional right and it does not prevent the disposal of the land, because in the normal course of transacting business, the banks have worked on numerous occasions with the tax authorities to ensure that these matters are dealt with and resolved,” he maintained. (JRT)