In the Trinidad Express there was an issue with this and look what was said,
They forgot to take off the VAT from the things that Trinis buy the most - KFC and Subway! Also Rituals still has a VAT statement on their bill. Once the non-grocery items remain with the VAT, it makes little difference for me the removal of the VAT.
Edited: Cagel on 10th Apr, 2013 - 5:45pm
Boy, so the government added 12.5% vat on hundreds of food items the basic ones! Such as flour, rice, pasta, cereal, oil, juice, sugar etc between hundreds of others. Which means since they keep raising the prices all the time for NO reason, we will now see even a greater increase. Madness! Fed up trying to figure out how to spend less or that we are spending 'too much' on food when the reality is that they have you with a noose tight on your neck with no break. Yet the cost of the trip to London to the Prime Minister was over $200,000!
I am getting such a bad feeling about this.
PM Rowley's answer to the higher prices to come on the 1st February, 2016: Change your diet. While I hardly eat anything that comes out of a supermarket somethings on the list to be VATable are considered basic items.
Even though I agree with the statement because generally speaking Trinidadians eat very badly: Apple chow? Doubles? Pepper-saturated food? Ketchup and mustard in pizza? And the list goes on, the statement is wrong with regards to the relationship between healthy eating and the tax they will be imposing on all the basic products.
It is easy for Mr. Rowley who lives an affluent lifestyle and travels back and forth to tell the poor man in the street to change their diet when a lot of them, are hardly able to put food in their table and pay bills. Let's get real. This isn't about raising the price of KFC (Which will happen), we are talking about basic products such as rice, beans, etc. Let's not become so ignorant and try to justify the disaster that is approaching.