Retirees still paying as Govt misses pension tax deadline

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

For pen­sion­ers earn­ing above $7,500 a month, the Gov­ern­ment’s pledge of tax-free pri­vate pen­sions was sup­posed to take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

In­stead, three months in­to the year, those re­tirees are still pay­ing a 25 per cent tax on in­come they were told would be ex­empt, tight­en­ing an al­ready strained ex­is­tence.

The Busi­ness Guardian reached out to sev­er­al pen­sion­ers to gath­er their views. Mar­garet Lewis, a 68-year-old re­tired cler­i­cal su­per­vi­sor, had done the cal­cu­la­tions when the mea­sure was an­nounced.

Her pri­vate pen­sion sits just above the $7,500 thresh­old, plac­ing her square­ly in the cat­e­go­ry ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit. The re­moval of the tax would have re­turned sev­er­al hun­dred dol­lars to her each month—mon­ey she had al­ready ear­marked for gro­ceries and med­ica­tion.

Her rent has in­creased twice in the last three years. Elec­tric­i­ty bills fluc­tu­ate but trend up­ward. Trips to the phar­ma­cy are no longer rou­tine, but strate­gic: what can be de­ferred, and what must be pur­chased now. The tax de­duc­tion on her pen­sion, she ex­plained, cuts deep­er than it once did be­cause every­thing else has be­come more ex­pen­sive.

David Mo­hammed, 72, a for­mer tech­ni­cian, sup­ports not on­ly him­self but two grand­chil­dren whose par­ents are strug­gling to find sta­ble work. His pri­vate pen­sion ex­ceeds the $7,500 thresh­old, mean­ing it is taxed at the stan­dard rate.

When the tax-free mea­sure was an­nounced, he saw it as a turn­ing point. School ex­pens­es, food, trans­porta­tion—all of it comes from a fixed month­ly in­come that does not stretch as far as it once did.

The an­tic­i­pat­ed tax re­lief would have al­lowed him to ab­sorb some of those costs with­out falling be­hind else­where. In­stead, the de­duc­tions con­tin­ue, and the bal­anc­ing act grows tighter.

These are the lived re­al­i­ties now feed­ing in­to a grow­ing wave of com­plaints di­rect­ed to the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­tired Per­sons (TTARP), as pen­sion­ers call for the Gov­ern­ment to ho­n­our a com­mit­ment made dur­ing the 2026 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

Cost of liv­ing clos­ing in

The pol­i­cy it­self was clear in scope. The tax ex­emp­tion ap­plies to pri­vate pen­sions, specif­i­cal­ly af­fect­ing in­di­vid­u­als earn­ing above $7,500 per month, or $90,000 an­nu­al­ly, where in­come tax be­comes payable. Be­low that thresh­old, no tax is ap­plied. For those above it, how­ev­er, the im­pact is im­me­di­ate and sig­nif­i­cant.

A pen­sion of $10,000 per month, once taxed at 25 per cent, is re­duced by $2,500. That de­duc­tion, pen­sion­ers ar­gue, is the dif­fer­ence be­tween man­ag­ing and strug­gling.

Car­ol Bap­tiste, a re­tired nurse, de­scribed how quick­ly ex­pens­es have over­tak­en in­come. Her gro­cery bill has climbed steadi­ly, with sta­ples cost­ing no­tice­ably more than they did even two years ago. Med­ical needs have al­so in­creased with age, adding an­oth­er lay­er of un­avoid­able ex­pen­di­ture.

The promised re­moval of tax was ex­pect­ed to pro­vide re­lief where it was most need­ed. With­out it, she is forced to make trade-offs—spend­ing less in one area to cov­er an­oth­er, of­ten at the ex­pense of com­fort or con­ve­nience.

An­tho­ny Sook­lal, a for­mer pub­lic ser­vant, faces a sim­i­lar re­al­i­ty, but with an added com­pli­ca­tion. Af­ter re­tir­ing, he wait­ed more than a year for his full pen­sion ben­e­fits to be processed due to de­lays in track­ing his work his­to­ry across dif­fer­ent de­part­ments.

Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, he re­lied sole­ly on his Na­tion­al In­sur­ance pay­ments, which were sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than his ex­pect­ed in­come. Even now, with his pen­sion in place, tax­a­tion con­tin­ues to re­duce what he takes home.

That com­bi­na­tion of ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays fol­lowed by on­go­ing tax­a­tion has left him fi­nan­cial­ly ex­posed. The ex­pec­ta­tion of tax-free pen­sion in­come had of­fered a mea­sure of re­cov­ery; its ab­sence pro­longs the strain.

The ar­gu­ment from pen­sion­ers is not on­ly about af­ford­abil­i­ty but fair­ness. Many point out that their pen­sion in­come is de­rived from con­tri­bu­tions made dur­ing their work­ing lives—in­come that was al­ready taxed at source. To face tax­a­tion again in re­tire­ment is viewed as an in­equity that the Gov­ern­ment it­self ac­knowl­edged in propos­ing the ex­emp­tion.

Wait­ing, and still pay­ing

TTARP has been at the cen­tre of the re­sponse, re­ceiv­ing a steady flow of cor­re­spon­dence from af­fect­ed mem­bers. The or­gan­i­sa­tion sup­port­ed the pol­i­cy when it was an­nounced but quick­ly flagged a crit­i­cal is­sue: the ab­sence of en­abling leg­is­la­tion in the Fi­nance Bill.

Reynold Coop­er, first vice-pres­i­dent of TTARP, out­lined the se­quence of events and the as­so­ci­a­tion’s con­cerns.

“We had writ­ten to them in the past, be­fore it was an­nounced, that we would like pen­sion­ers, es­pe­cial­ly gov­ern­ment pen­sion­ers, not to pay tax­es, es­pe­cial­ly those like my­self who get a pen­sion above $7,500. And what can I say, that’s the lim­it. And the rea­son for that is that I know some of us have re­tired a num­ber of years, and with the cost of liv­ing and in­fla­tion, that has erod­ed the val­ue that you will get out of your pen­sion.

“We wrote to the min­is­ter af­ter the bud­get, be­cause we said that it was to be im­ple­ment­ed in Jan­u­ary of 2026. It was an­nounced last year, and it was go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed this year, es­pe­cial­ly for the pri­vate pen­sions. So we wrote, and we haven’t had a re­sponse as yet in terms of when it will be im­ple­ment­ed,” Coop­er ex­plained.

He said the vol­ume of feed­back from pen­sion­ers has been con­sis­tent and grow­ing.

“Yes, I’ve been get­ting calls; I’ve been get­ting emails; I’ve been get­ting What­sApp mes­sages from per­sons. We wrote to the min­is­ter al­ready about it. That was ear­li­er this year, around Feb­ru­ary. When per­sons were charged tax­es on their in­come, we wrote then. We haven’t had a re­sponse as yet in terms of when it will be im­ple­ment­ed,” Coop­er added.

Pol­i­cy promise un­der pres­sure

The Gov­ern­ment has in­di­cat­ed that the de­lay is tied to leg­isla­tive re­quire­ments and ear­li­er chal­lenges in ver­i­fy­ing the da­ta need­ed to sup­port the pol­i­cy.

In Jan­u­ary, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo ad­dressed the is­sue, point­ing to progress in draft­ing the nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion. “The leg­is­la­tion has been draft­ed. I think it is be­fore the Cab­i­net as we speak. I ex­pect there’s a Fi­nance Bill that is due pos­si­bly in the end of Feb­ru­ary, ear­ly March. It will be in­volved in that Fi­nance Bill. So that is com­ing,” he said.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged ini­tial dif­fi­cul­ties.

“There was a lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in terms of the da­ta to ver­i­fy where we want­ed to go, and that da­ta has since come in,” he not­ed, adding that the draft leg­is­la­tion had been placed be­fore Cab­i­net.

The pro­pos­al sits with­in a broad­er re­form frame­work aimed at sta­bil­is­ing the pen­sion sys­tem, in­clud­ing ad­just­ments to Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions and re­tire­ment age thresh­olds.

“If we did not do that, what would have hap­pened is the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Fund would have gone bank­rupt,” Tan­coo warned, fram­ing the re­forms as nec­es­sary to safe­guard fu­ture ben­e­fits.

The Busi­ness Guardian reached out to the min­is­ter again on Tues­day for an up­date but re­ceived no re­sponse.

But for pen­sion­ers like Lewis, Mo­hammed, Bap­tiste, and Sook­lal, the fo­cus re­mains im­me­di­ate. The promise of tax-free pen­sion in­come was not an ab­stract pol­i­cy; it was a re­lief they had al­ready fac­tored in­to their lives.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is prepar­ing to raise the is­sue again in its sub­mis­sions for the up­com­ing bud­get cy­cle, but that time­line rais­es its own con­cerns. A mea­sure ini­tial­ly slat­ed for Jan­u­ary 2026 risks be­ing pushed fur­ther down the road, ex­tend­ing the pe­ri­od dur­ing which pen­sion­ers con­tin­ue to pay tax­es they were told would be re­moved.

Coop­er sig­nalled both per­sis­tence and un­cer­tain­ty.

“We are wait­ing un­til they ask, and nor­mal­ly we sub­mit our pro­pos­als around June of the year. So we are prepar­ing for that. I’m hop­ing that by Jan­u­ary 2027, it will not be taxed on pri­vate pen­sions and al­so pub­lic gov­ern­ment pen­sions,” he said.

Eco­nom­ic con­di­tions may fur­ther com­pli­cate mat­ters, as Coop­er point­ed to signs of stress with­in the wider econ­o­my, in­clud­ing busi­ness clo­sures and for­eign ex­change pres­sures, sug­gest­ing that the en­vi­ron­ment could be­come more chal­leng­ing in the months ahead.

“We sus­pect that to­wards the end of this year, 2026, and al­so in 2027, the econ­o­my will not be as good as it is now. In fact, I even read in the news­pa­pers that a lot of busi­ness­es have closed, and it is ex­pect­ed that more will close in the fu­ture. The econ­o­my is not go­ing to be as pos­i­tive as we would have hoped it to be,” he added.