PM Addresses Stamp Duty Delays |
Fri, January 10, 2025 |
|
Turning to another subject we covered with the Prime Minister - the issue of stamp duties assessed on land transfers has always been a thorny one.
The lower the value of the transfer, the lower the duty. But, it is left to the commissioner of stamps to approve that value.
But there have been complaints that there have been too many delays in the processing of stamp duty. According to the PM that's due to issues with the folio system, but they are working to resolve it:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well the stamp duty the office of stamp duty is in the ministry of finance but I don't know what the issue is we tried to facilitate as quickly as possible the processing of that we have an issue, the folio system the land folio system that the ministry has it was upgraded to 7 and that should have made the things easier being able to work online and digitally. Unfortunately we've seemed to be having a lot of problems because a lot of times it crashes and then so things disappear within because of that and the slowness or the issue we had a discussion about that and I called a meeting early November if I remember right and I brought in the CEO along with the DPM, Noreen Fairweather the person in charge of the System from natural resources, different people and E governance to be able to address it and the I insisted that the company I think it was a company from Norway but it was a company from Canada that bought them over and said that they need to come in to fix it I was told they came in December to find ways on how to address that challenge so I have not gotten an update form the DPM maybe I need to ask him what has transpired since then and so it was not Noreen it was the system that was breaking down all the time and lately we know that the law has enacted where you now you will not pay stamp duty on lands of 30k or less and also the stamp duty is for loans of over 100k or less for these mortgages you will not be able to and so that has been enacted starting January 1st."
|