Tax Residence in Trinidad and Tobago: Worldwide Income, and No Statutory Test
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Jamaica on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Jamaica to Trinidad and Tobago · When you become a tax resident
Section 5(1) of the Income Tax Act charges tax on the income of any person accruing in or derived from Trinidad and Tobago or elsewhere, and whether received in Trinidad and Tobago or not. That is a worldwide charge, and it is expressed without reference to residence at all. Residence enters at section 5(2), which cuts it back: where income arises outside the country to a person who is not ordinarily resident or not domiciled there, tax is payable only on the amount received in Trinidad and Tobago. So the system is worldwide for the resident and domiciled individual and a remittance basis for everyone else - and the test is disjunctive, not ordinarily resident OR not domiciled, so failing either one is enough. What the Act does not contain is a definition of resident, ordinarily resident or domicile for an individual. Section 2 defines resident company and non-resident company by reference to the Corporation Tax Act and stops there. There is no day count anywhere in the Act, and the figure of 183 days that every secondary source repeats appears in no provision we read. Residence is a question of fact at common law, and the statute leaves it there.
At a glance
- System
- Worldwide for the resident and domiciled individual; remittance basis otherwise
- Statutory definition of resident for an individual
- None
The Income Tax Act's only residence definition is the one in section 2(1) for a resident company, quoted here. The Act uses resident, ordinarily resident and domiciled of an individual without defining any of them.
- Day-count test
- None in the Act
- The section 5(2) test
- Not ordinarily resident or not domiciled - either one is enough
- Foreign employment exercised in the country
- Taxed in full whether received here or not
The proviso to section 5(2) pulls employment income back into the worldwide charge even for a remittance-basis taxpayer.
- Personal allowance
- TT$90,000as of 2023-01-01
- Personal allowance for a non-resident on a Trinidad and Tobago pension
- TT$90,000
Section 18(b) extends the allowance to a non-resident receiving pension income accruing or derived from Trinidad and Tobago.
- Year of income
- The twelve months commencing 1 January
- Return due
- Within four months after the end of the year of income
- Health surcharge
- TT$8.25 a week above TT$469.99 a month, otherwise TT$4.80
Not charged below sixteen or at sixty and over. Nationality is irrelevant to it.
Requirements
- Filing a return within four months after the end of the year of income, which runs from 1 January
- Nothing else turns on a day count, because no day count exists in the Act
In detail
What the charging section actually says
Most descriptions of Trinidad and Tobago's income tax begin with residence. The Act does not. Section 5(1) imposes the tax on the income of any person accruing in or derived from Trinidad and Tobago or elsewhere, and whether received in Trinidad and Tobago or not, and then lists thirteen heads of income from farming to any annual gains or profits not falling under any of the foregoing paragraphs. Residence is not mentioned. It arrives in subsection (2) as a restriction, and the restriction is the remittance basis: where income arises outside the country to a person who is not ordinarily resident or not domiciled there, tax is payable on the amount received in Trinidad and Tobago. Read in that order the structure is clear - the charge is worldwide, and being foreign to the country narrows it rather than being resident widening it.
The disjunction, and why it is wider than it looks
The condition in section 5(2) is not ordinarily resident or not domiciled. Not and. A person who has lived in Trinidad and Tobago for twenty years but retains a domicile of origin elsewhere satisfies the second limb and is on the remittance basis for foreign income, and so is a person who is domiciled there but has gone to live abroad without losing the domicile. Most secondary accounts of the country's tax law state the test as resident but not domiciled, which is the Barbadian formulation, and it is not what this Act says. The one thing the subsection pulls back is employment: where an employment or office is exercised in Trinidad and Tobago, the gains or profits from it are treated as income arising there and are taxed whether received there or not, so a remittance-basis taxpayer cannot route a local salary through a foreign account.
The missing definition
Section 2 of the Income Tax Act defines twenty-seven expressions. Among them are resident company and non-resident company, both borrowed from section 2 of the Corporation Tax Act. There is no definition of resident, of ordinarily resident, or of domicile for an individual, and there is no day count in the Act - no 183 days, no six months, no presence test of any kind. Rules 2 of the First Schedule uses the phrase not resident and not ordinarily resident without defining it either. The consequence is that individual residence in Trinidad and Tobago is determined at common law, on the facts, by the same body of case law that English and Commonwealth courts have built up around the words, and the Board of Inland Revenue applies it administratively. We looked for a statutory test in the charging provisions, in the interpretation section, in the First Schedule and in the Health Surcharge Act, and there is none.
The allowance, and where it has got to
Section 18 gives a personal allowance to an individual to whom section 17 applies - which is to say an individual resident in Trinidad and Tobago - and, unusually, to a non-resident in receipt of pension income accruing or derived from Trinidad and Tobago. The published Chapter prints seventy-two thousand dollars, the figure put there by Act No. 1 of 2016 and correct at the edition's cut-off. The Finance Act 2020 raised it to eighty-four thousand on assent, 24 December 2020, and the Finance Act 2022 raised it to ninety thousand by section 8(a), which that Act's own section 13(1) brought into force on 1 January 2023. The Board of Inland Revenue's deductions page states the same figure from the same date, which is a check rather than a source. Neither the Finance Act 2025 nor the Finance Act 2026 touched section 18.
Country-level policy
Every page of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago published on the Ministry of the Attorney General's site carries two lines of its own: UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016. Both are true and both matter. The Law Revision Act makes the Law Revision Commission responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the revised edition; section 5 says the Laws shall be published in loose-leaf form or in such other form as the Commission may determine; section 6 provides that every page must be authorised for inclusion by Order and that every page so authorised, and no other, shall form part of the Laws; and section 15 makes those authorised pages, in all Courts and for all purposes, the proper Statute Book. The web PDFs do not claim to be those pages. Their Current Authorised Pages table has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. and the column is empty. In May 2026 Parliament passed an Act to fix this - the Law Revision (Amendment) Act, which would let the Minister designate a website as the sole official website and make a download from it deemed official and authoritative, prevailing over the loose-leaf where they differ. It was assented on 15 May 2026 and comes into operation on such date as is fixed by the President by Proclamation. No such Proclamation appears among the 822 legal notices of 2026.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Jamaica
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«income upon the income of any person accruing in or derived
from Trinidad and Tobago or elsewhere, and whether received in
Trinidad and Tobago or not in respect of—»The sentence begins on the previous page of the publisher's PDF with the words Income tax shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be payable at the rate or rates specified hereafter for each year of, and is interrupted by two footnotes and the page furniture. The charge is on any person, not on a resident.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(2) In the case of income arising outside Trinidad and
Tobago to a person who is not ordinarily resident or not domiciled
therein, tax shall be payable on the amount received in Trinidad and
Tobago, so however, that where any employment or office is
exercised by any such person in Trinidad and Tobago, gains or
profits from the employment or office, whether received in Trinidad
and Tobago or not, shall be treated as income arising therein.»The remittance basis, and the proviso that takes employment income back out of it. The test is disjunctive: not ordinarily resident or not domiciled.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«“resident company” has the meaning assigned to that
expression for the purposes of the Corporation Tax Act by
section 2 thereof;»The only residence definition in the Act, and it is about companies. There is no corresponding definition of resident, ordinarily resident or domicile for an individual.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«17. In ascertaining the chargeable income for any year of an Relief allowable
individual who is resident in Trinidad and Tobago, there shall, upon [16 of 1963
to residents.
due claim and subject to such evidence as the Board may require, 66 of 1975
be allowed any deduction to which he is entitled under this Act.»Quoted as printed: the marginal note and the amendment references sit inside the text column. Deductions are available to an individual who is resident in Trinidad and Tobago - the Act uses the word without ever saying what it means.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«76. (1) Every person liable to furnish a return of income in Returns of
respect of any year of income either personally or in a [66 of 1975
income.
representative capacity, shall furnish a return in such form as may 11 of 1988
be approved by the Board within four months after the end of that 35 of 1998
5 of 1995
year of income.»About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(a) in section 18, by deleting the words
“personal allowance of eighty-four thousand
dollars” and substituting the words
“personal allowance of ninety thousand
dollars”; and»About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«13. (1) Sections 2, 3, 5, 7, 8(a), 9(a) and 12 come into Commencement
force on the 1st day of January, 2023.»About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«(a) in section 18, by deleting the words
amended
“personal allowance of seventy-two
thousand dollars” and substituting the
words “personal allowance of eighty-four
thousand dollars”; and»The step before. This Act carries no commencement section, so it took effect on assent on 24 December 2020.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«3. (1) A tax to be called a health surcharge shall be charged
[6 of 1991]. and is payable—
(a) by every employed person who pays or is liable
Ch. 32:01. to pay contribution under the National Insurance
Act; and
(b) by individuals other than employed persons who
Ch. 75:01. in accordance with section 76 of the Income Tax
Act are liable to furnish a return of income.»Quoted as printed: the marginal note, amendment reference and Chapter references sit inside the text column.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(a) employed persons whose monthly emoluments
are more than $469.99 or whose weekly
emoluments are more than $109.00—$8.25
per week. All other employed persons—$4.80
per week;»About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Nothing in the Act makes the personal allowance depend on nationality or on immigration status. It depends on residence, which the Act does not define.
The health surcharge is a separate tax with its own statute, charged on every employed person who pays national insurance and on every individual liable to file a return. It does not stop at the border of nationality and it is not a health insurance premium: section 3(3) directs it into the Consolidated Fund to be applied to the provision of health services.
The figure of 183 days appears in no provision of the Income Tax Act, the Corporation Tax Act or the Health Surcharge Act that we read, and we have not published it here. A secondary source stating it is stating the Board's practice, not the statute.
This record rests on sections 2, 5, 17, 18, 60 and 76 of the Income Tax Act and on the First Schedule to it, on the Health Surcharge Act, all in editions updated to 31 December 2016, on the Finance Acts of 2020, 2022, 2025 and 2026 as enacted, and on the Board of Inland Revenue's deductions and allowances page.
- consolidatesIncome Tax Act, Chapter 75:01
Law Revision Commission, Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago · consolidated to 2016-12-31
About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- issuesFinance Act, 2022 (Act No. 21 of 2022)
Digital Legislative Library, Trinidad and Tobago
About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- issuesFinance Act, 2020 (Act No. 30 of 2020)
Digital Legislative Library, Trinidad and Tobago
About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- consolidatesHealth Surcharge Act, Chapter 75:05
Law Revision Commission, Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago · consolidated to 2016-12-31
About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- administersIndividual Deductions and Required Supporting Documents
Board of Inland Revenue, Trinidad and Tobago
About this source
The authority that assesses and collects income tax and health surcharge under the Income Tax Act and the Health Surcharge Act. Its individual pages list the deductions and allowances with the date each figure took effect, and publish a table of allowances by income year, which is the quickest way to see where a figure in the frozen Chapter has got to.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It administers and does not issue, and it does not publish the text of the Income Tax Act. It must not be cited for the test of residence: the Act contains no definition of resident, ordinarily resident or domicile for an individual and no day count, so any figure the Board applies is practice rather than statute. Its deductions page states that the deductions are current as of tax year 2014 except where otherwise stated, which makes every unmarked item on it undated.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source