The Finance Bill 2026, laid in Parliament yesterday by Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo, outlines significant increases in penalties for a variety of offences. Among the proposed changes is a quadrupling of fines for manufacturing vinegar or copra products without a license, from $2,000 to $8,000. A new penalty for operating more amusement games than permitted has also been introduced, with offenders facing a $25,000 fine and potential imprisonment for up to a year.<\/p>\n
The bill takes a particularly strong stance on tobacco-related offences. Selling tobacco to minors and related offences could result in fines of up to $150,000 and nine months’ imprisonment for first-time offenders, while those indicted for tobacco offences could face fines of up to $600,000 and imprisonment for up to three years.<\/p>\n
Further, the bill proposes increases in fines for environmental offences such as removing timber or operating a sawmill without a permit, from $100,000 to $150,000, and for hunting-related offences, with fines reaching up to $150,000. Penalties under the General Motor Launches Act are set to more than triple, from $2,000 to $7,500, and fines for carrying excess passengers on a vessel will increase fivefold, from $200 to $1,000.<\/p>\n
The Finance Bill 2026 is scheduled for debate in the House of Representatives on June 10, before being reviewed by the Standing Finance Committee on June 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Bill 2026 Proposes Major Fine Increases for Various Offences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}