The International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRSs, are a fundamental concept in the financial community. They assist businesses in identifying and disclosing material information about risks and opportunities that could affect their cash flows, cost of capital, or access to financing.

The idea of integrated thinking—looking at the connections between business activity and stakeholders, society, the economy, and the environment—is crucial.

The Minister of Finance wishes to advise that the time period for the payment of Property Tax has been extended from September 30, 2024 to November 29, 2024 pursuant to Legal Notice No. 175 of 2024 published today (below). Consequently, owners and occupiers of residential land in receipt of a Notice of Assessment from the Board of Inland Revenue have until November 29, 2024 to pay Property Tax without incurring any penalties.

To date approximately eight (8) fake Facebook accounts have been identified with unauthorised photographs of the Minister, all attempting to either solicit money from unsuspecting persons or steal their digital identities through phishing scams.

The issue is currently being investigated by law enforcement to determine the perpetrators, but while this investigation continues, the Minister of Finance would like members of the public to be vigilant towards these fake profiles and their suspicious activities and ignore any and all Friend Requests or Messages/Invitations from Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp or any other social media platform that appear to come from him.

The Public is advised that, pursuant to section 2 of the Finance Act, 2023, which took legal effect on December 20, 2023, there is applicable to all employers registered with the National Insurance Board of Trinidad and Tobago prior to December 20, 2023, a waiver of all penalties and interest due and payable under section 39B of the National Insurance Act.

The Minister of Finance, Hon. Colm Imbert, has taken note of an article in the Daily Express with the patently erroneous headline “Gun Theft at Customs”, which goes on to erroneously state that security systems at a transit shed “at Customs” were found to be non-functional and illegal items have disappeared from sheds “at Customs”.

These misstatements give the false impression that the Minister of Finance said yesterday in Parliament that there is poor security at bonded warehouses or transit sheds owned and operated by the Customs and Excise Division, and, therefore, the Customs and Excise Division has been negligent.

The truth is the transit sheds that the Minister of Finance referred to are owned and operated by PRIVATE COMPANIES and it is because the Customs and Excise Division discovered that security systems were non-functional packages had disappeared, and record-keeping was poor at these PRIVATE facilities, that these PRIVATE transit sheds were closed, temporarily, until their owners remedied the defects in their security systems and records.