The Government has had ‘no deliberations’ on the issue of ending the stamp duty reduction on property transfers in place since November 2001, the Leader of Government Business, Kurt Tibbetts said at the Cabinet press briefing Friday.
‘The truth is, at this point in time there have been no deliberations on the matter,’ he said.
Mr. Tibbetts said he did not know where the speculation, as reported in the Caymanian Compass headline article of 7 October, came from.
In the article, several realtors expressed their views on how they thought the matter of raising the stamp duty should be handled.
‘What has happened is that they’ve given the government something to think about,’ Mr. Tibbetts said.
While not promising to listen to all of their advice, Mr. Tibbetts did address two of the realtors’ concerns.
‘The government certainly would make any decision based on empirical facts and data, and certainly would give enough time before raising the stamp duty,’ he said.
Minister Alden McLaughlin expressed his disappointment over the fact the government’s position was not stated in the original article and suggested no attempt had been made to contact anyone in Cabinet about the matter.
‘I see where the Leader of the Opposition was given an opportunity to comment,’ he said, adding that it seemed to him the press was not being fair.
However, two attempts to contact Mr. Tibbetts about the stamp duty issue on the day the article was written were unsuccessful.
Mr. McLaughlin later said the issue of stamp duty had in fact been discussed by the Cabinet, but that no decision had been reached.
‘(Stamp duty) will have to go up eventually,’ he said.
The stamp duty rate was reduced from nine per cent for properties in the Seven Mile Beach corridor and seven and a half percent everywhere else to five per cent in November 2001 as a way of stimulating the real estate and construction industries.
On another aspect of the stamp duty issue, Mr. Tibbetts said the Cabinet had discussed the matter of the duty free allowance for first-time Caymanian purchasers.
He noted that the current allowance of $35,000 for land and $150,000 for homes was somewhat limiting.
If land costs $35,001 or a home costs $150,001, the purchasers are not entitled to any allowance at all.
Mr. Tibbetts said the Financial Secretary had been asked to gather information and make recommendations about the matter.
Two possible options of how to proceed outlined by Mr. Tibbetts were either to raise the allowance or to apply the current allowance to the first portion of a higher sales price.
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