The property tax valuation exercise is not merely to ensure those taxes are paid but is also a mechanism for rooting out fraud. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said as much yesterday in his address at the opening of Global Forensic Institute’s (GFI) Caribbean Fraud Conference 2017: FATCA, Trafficking and Risk at the Radisson Hotel in Port-of-Spain.
“I want to point out something the country has missed. How do you establish ownership of properties in this country? Doesn’t it require the State identifying all ownership in the country?” he asked.
“How do you identify all ownership of land? By a mechanism of compulsory registration for land which is why in the Parliament there are four bits of legislation which require the State to go to every inch of T&T, identify the owner and compulsory register.
“I don’t want to offend any injunctions in court but I want you to think a little bit deeper about how you double check the ownership of land. It requires the State to go out and bring its records to date. If we are serious about dealing with corruption the first thing is to step back and look at the system.”
Al-Rawi said.Government is also working on a “completely renovated system” for land registration which is expected to go before Parliament in September.
“Right now people abuse, hiding proceeds of crime under beneficial ownership arrangements or deeds of trust. We are proposing that all trusts must be done by deed and all documents must be registered including agreement for sale. If you can’t register you tell the registry and that becomes public record,” hei said.
The AG said although there are several robust laws to tackle fraud, the gap between an allegation and conviction is still “impossibly too large,” making it difficult to bring perpetrators to justice. He said this is taking place against a backdrop of 53 police prosecutors, of which only eight are lawyers, handling 95 per cent of magisterial matters.
“Every magisterial matter is a preliminary inquiry and you have 29,000 of them in arrears. You’ve got 100,000 cases occupying judicial time for traffic offences. You have 2,100 cases in backlog over 15 years in the High Court ,” he said.
The AG warned that Government’s approach to stamping out corruption is targeted, adding that this had repercussions.
“It is not by mistake that people attack certain members of Government. I have been accused of being a tactical Attorney General by the Opposition,” he said.
He pledged to deal with the “eat ah food” syndrome.
Noting that most in this country gave a “collective steups” on law enforcement, Al-Rawi added: “The real problem in our country is the distance between an allegation of corruption or fraud or criminality and the conviction is just impossibly large. Our largest case of alleged corruption in our jurisdiction is the Piarco Airport Inquiry.
The AG said that case is in its seventeenth year in the magistrate’s court following which it will proceed to the High Court from which there is the possibility of it going to the Court of Appeal and Privy Counsel.
On the Proceeds of Crime Act, the AG said the Police Service can demonstrate only $250,000 in cash forfeitures because the Act requires there be a crime with a conviction in court before going after behind the proceeds of the crime.
“So if your pre-trial stage is 17 years and yet to go to Court of Appeal . . . when you eventually get to a conviction, you’re 30 years past and then you go for the conviction and forfeiture of assets,” he said.
Al-Rawi said the root cause of criminality in T&T is fraud. Using the car industry as an example, he said roughly 10,000 cars are licensed per month.
“The allegation is the Licensing Authority would ask for $500 to accelerate licensing for your car. That is a small request but take that and multiply it by $10,000 and multiply it by 12 and somebody in the Licensing Department has a $60 million enterprise based on fraud,” je said.
The AG said over the past 26 years there have been several discussions about regularising the credit union system with “nothing to show.”
“So your credit union regulations are coming,” he said, adding that owners of companies must also disclose the “true owners” of shares.
Dealing with tax evasion
Al-Rawi said the secrecy provision in the Income Tax Act has to be opened up to allow for certain prescribed entities to access information for law enforcement purposes and to ensure “somebody is guarding the guards.”
He said the proposal requires a special majority and there is a Miscellaneous Bill before Parliament tfor prosecution of tax evasion matters in a reciprocal arrangement.
“We will extradite persons who are deemed to be wanted in a foreign jurisdiction for tax evasion. Currently the law as it stands is that the Government could say no if an extradition request is made for tax evasion purposes,” he said, adding that this discretion is currently being reviewed.
