Lands & Survey makes bid to collect missing duty
(CNS): Officials from the Lands and Survey Department are calling for people to pay duty on their leases. Information released under the FOI law last month in response to a request by local attorney Peter Polack revealed that the public purse was missing millions of dollars because many tenants of business or residential properties are not paying up and government is not collecting.
In a press release Thursday, Chief Valuation Officer Jon Hall said everyone with a written lease must pay stamp duty.
“The general public may not be fully aware of the Stamp Duty Law and I can understand how some confusion and misunderstandings may have arisen. However, there are no exceptions, and I cannot stress enough – if you have a written lease, regardless of whether it is called a tenancy, lease, agreement or other similar description, then Stamp Duty is payable on it,” he said.
All rental leases, whether commercial or residential and regardless of length must be submitted to Lands and Survey for the assessment and payment of stamp duty in accordance with the Stamp Duty Law (2013 Revision).
The Department suspects that there are many property leases in existence which have not been presented for Stamp Duty assessment. All such leases must be submitted for the assessment of duty, no matter how long the lease period or whether the lease is required by law to be registered with the Lands Registry or not.
Registrar of Lands Sophia Williams said that registration for leases under two years is optional. “I would encourage Registration because this provides protection of the rights of both parties to the lease in the event of dispute. But stamp duty is payable in both instances,” she added.
For further information on Stamp Duty issues, please contact the Valuation & Estates Office at the Lands & Survey Department on 244-3420 or by email at valuation.info@gov.ky
Information about stamp duty on leases can be found on the department’s website.
Category: Government Finance, Local News, Politics
By the time you subtract cost of collection Govt might net 600,000 from this stupidity.
Subtract the 50% who will pay they might get 300,000 for the treasury.
On the other hand, they just gave Dart 35million concession on import duty.
Could they have witheld 1% of whst they are giving to the super rich?
Better yet, take thid stupid law off the books.
Abolish it alltogether.
Why are landlords not the ones paying this duty? They are receiving the most benefit from the lease.
Well, it looks like “We” will all be policing each other (e.g. family, friends, neighbors, business associates, etc.) and reporting our findings to the Government L & S Department, in hopes that everyone is paying their share of stamp duties. The only problem with that is confidentiality of civilian reports (External Reporting) AND the Secrecy of “In-house” Administration of collections and validity of public records (Internal Reporting). We all know how shady the Cayman Islands L& S and Planning Departments are, as it dictates the “Bread and Butter” aka Wealth of the islands’ people, including investors.
Hey, all I’m trying to say here folks is, this will definitely cause some civilian problems, and will take a long time for residence and investors to get use to.
The Government still allow people to cheat fees (including stamp duty) via administrative action or inaction; so, residents can expect this (collections process) to operate in quite the same fashion.
Also, in these austere times, where rental incomes facilitate mortgage payments and other (monthly) recurring expenses, we can expect an increase in foreclosures and utility disconnections.
NOTE: The biggest, adverse economic impact will be on the poor and middle/working class families, who are the largest segment of our population!
There is no middle class in Cayman anymore. The poor can only take so much until the bottom of the bucket fall out
Outsource this to a local law firm and let them keep 30% of collections plus their costs. Would be much speedier and effective.
so it’s gonna be similar to the pension and health insurance situation where the ones who pay are getting screwed cause nobody is gonna enforce payment on those who just pretend they don’t know anything about it….
This on top of unpaid hospital bills, unpaid student loans, damages paid by CIG in the past for Breach of Contract, and so on, and so on….While they are at it, Treasury should check the leaflet that Land Registry used to issue giving guidance on Stamp Duty rates on sales/purchases of real estate, which was frequently used by attorneys. The section covering the West Bay Road corridor was wrong and suggested a lower rate of Stamp Duty for certain transactions, than was shown in the applicable law.
HOW MUCH MONEY has Cayman lost over say just the past 10 years – the figure must be staggering.
They should review Pollack’s cocnerns re the Attorney General and that office
What a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the bloated coffers of the CIG. Seriously though, just repeal the tax. You aren’t collecting it, aren’t likely to start collecting it, the gov. is pulling in 800 million a year, and you’re running a big surplus. What’s the point of screwing around with a hard to collect tax? Getting rid of it wont cost much and could stimulate thelocal economy a little.
me no speaky englasie…
Never gonna get it.
If this truly becomes enforced and either this or the new government does not do anything about it, they will not receive any votes. This is the backbone of development and enforcing this is property tax.
But it is a tax that is discriminatory against foreigners and regressive in that it affects the poor locals more than the rich locals. So it suits the powers that be.
I am not paying my medical bills at the hospital, or overtime to my helper, or health insurance for my spouse or trade and business license fees for my jet ski operation and I am sure as hell not paying this!
True I
All just confirming how inept/incompetent/or even corrupt our government and wider society is. It is disgusting. With our economic model and opportunities we should be doing so much better than we are.
By inserting a couple of standard clauses into the agreement one can convert a lease into a licence and then it would not fall within the stamp duty provisions.
Assuming you are honest enough to bother. Or CIG can be bothered to check, or for that matter even revise the rules to make you file the thing in the first place. Or enforce a breach when it comes to their attention.