An updated system, a fully-established unit, and a computerised system are expected to emerge from a current review of the property tax and evaluation procedures in Anguilla.
This is according to Anguilla’s Comptroller of Inland Revenue, Gecheal Richardson, who said that no evaluation of properties was done in almost over twelve years. “In between that time, it would probably be obvious to most persons that Anguilla had an increase in properties and in even in terms of square footage of properties,” she explained. “It is therefore necessary, at this point in time, to bring them up to date on our tax roll.
“We are currently undertaking that general valuation, and all properties will be surveyed to see whether there are any changes to what we last had on our tax roll. We just started in December so we still have a long way to go – perhaps three or so months more. We have our Valuation Officers, may be with some temporary help, doing the valuation.”
She said the work was all part of an effort to keep the island’s Property Tax roll up to date through general surveillance. “On-going from there, will be a need to do general evaluations, may be every five or seven years, so that the tax roll would always be current,” she further stated.
Over the years, Property Tax has been a lucrative source of public revenue for the Anguilla Government and, accordingly, it has provided a big boost to the annual budget.
Ms Richardson said that at present the Inland Revenue Department was sending out tax bills to property owners totalling over six million dollars, and that for 2012 an amount of almost four million dollars was collected. “A lot of that was in arrears. We have over six thousand three hundred properties on our tax roll,” she commented.
In 2011, Property Tax was increased by 150 percent. Ms Richardson was asked if a further increase was likely in the near future. “That is currently not part of our reform,” she replied. “The reform doesn’t really speak to tax rate increases. It speaks to modernising the legislation, putting in more enforcement so that there could be higher compliance… This is because if you are paying, you would expect that everybody is doing their share. The proposed legislation gives more enforcement measures in terms of compliance, and we are doing a computerised Property Tax system as the one we currently have is an old access database that is ready to fall apart.
“The other aspect of the reform is the general evaluation. Those are the key aspects that we are looking at in this property reform. It doesn’t have to be a tax rate increase. Inevitably, there would be an increase in revenue because if there are properties on the tax roll which are at a certain square footage, and they have additions, that would increase the property value and, of course, the tax revenue.”
Ms Richardson said that a new matter being looked at was the need for equity in the property tax system. This would include placing properties in such categories as tourism, industrial, commercial and residential, the last falling in the lower end of the categories. She stated that following on from that, could be consideration to raise additional revenuewith different tax rates for different categories. But she stressed that the focus of the current valuation surveys was definitely not on increasing property tax.
Meanwhile, a Property Tax Bill has been published in the Official Gazette, for public information, before being taken to the House of Assembly.
