If you live in Trinidad and Tobago, you may have to pay an extra tax to shop online! 

So there’s a battle heating up between Trinidad’s Government and Opposition and at the centre is the country’s Online Purchase Tax, OPT.

See back in 2016, Trinidad’s government started charging online shoppers 7% every time they bought something online and brought it into the country.

The tax only applies to goods shipped by air and is added after customs and duties taxes, but before VAT, which is Trinidad’s version of GCT.

It’s definitely not the most popular tax among locals, not that any tax is popular. I don’t know exactly how much OPT brought into Trinidad’s economy, but according to this year’s National Budget, the Government expects to make 23% of its revenue from taxes on goods and services.

But now, former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is calling on the government to get rid of the tax altogether.

According to this article in the Trinidad Daily Express, Persad-Bissessar, who is also the leader of the Opposition, says the government has been making some statements hinting that they may raise the tax higher than 7%.

Saying things like there’s been ‘an explosion in online shopping over the last several years’ etc. 

But Persad-Bissessar’s argument is that OPT is already an added level of stress, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, because many of them buy their business essentials online.

Can you imagine if this was a thing in Jamaica? I mean we already have an issue staying competitive in pricing, an online tax would probably tip the scale against us even more.

To be fair to the Trinidadian Government, we didn’t find anything that outright said they were thinking of raising the Online Purchase Tax, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t considering it.

And that comment about an explosion in online shopping could be telling… even though shipping companies in the country are saying there’s no explosion.  But we’ll have to see what actually happens as the details of the 2024 budget are revealed.

And that’s the bottom line.