Health Surcharge (Trinidad and Tobago), in plain English.

The Health Surcharge is not a percentage. Most statutory deductions in the Caribbean scale with what an employee earns. This one does not. It is a flat weekly levy, collected by Trinidad and Tobago's Board of Inland Revenue, capped at TTD $8.25 per employee per week for those in the upper earnings band. Your payroll engine either handles flat-rate logic correctly, or it misstates the deduction every single run. Every single one.

What it is and who administers it.

The Health Surcharge funds Trinidad and Tobago's public health system. The Board of Inland Revenue collects it, and every employed person in the country is subject to the levy regardless of salary level.

Two tiers apply. Employees earning above the lower earnings band pay the maximum: TTD $8.25 per week. Employees below that threshold pay a reduced rate. The employer deducts the correct amount from the employee's pay each period and remits it with the regular PAYE return. Two tiers, one threshold, and the employer is responsible for applying both correctly.

Running the numbers.

For an upper-band employee, the deduction is TTD $8.25 per week. Flat. The same figure appears in week one and week fifty-two. It does not change with a raise, a bonus, or an overtime payout.

That predictability is useful. But it also means payroll cycles that do not run weekly require a deliberate conversion to the correct period equivalent. The weekly flat rate does not carry over automatically. The system has to calculate the right amount for the pay period it is running, not assume the weekly figure transfers unchanged.

How it is remitted.

The Health Surcharge does not travel separately. It is bundled with PAYE and remitted to the Board of Inland Revenue on the employer's regular cycle. One return covers income tax deductions and the Health Surcharge together. Employers who treat the surcharge as a standalone obligation and file it on a different schedule will find the BIR reconciliation does not match.

What auditors find.

• Percentage logic applied to a flat-rate deduction. Software configured for percentage-based contributions will produce a different number every pay period. The Health Surcharge does not move with gross pay. Misconfigurations of this type often run undetected until a BIR audit or year-end reconciliation.
• Maximum rate applied regardless of earnings band. Two tiers exist. Employees below the lower earnings threshold pay a reduced rate. Applying TTD $8.25 across the board overstates the deduction for lower earners.
• Period conversion errors on non-weekly payrolls. Payroll cycles that run bi-weekly or longer must convert the weekly flat rate to the correct period equivalent. Carrying the weekly $8.25 into a longer pay period without adjustment means under-remitting each cycle.
• Separating the Health Surcharge from the PAYE return. Filing it outside the standard PAYE cycle creates reconciliation gaps at the Board of Inland Revenue.

How Workzoom handles it.

Workzoom built its payroll engine for the Caribbean from the ground up. That means knowing PAYE and a flat weekly Health Surcharge are distinct obligations with distinct calculation logic. Different rules. An engine that handles one correctly does not automatically handle the other.

Workzoom is built to handle the Health Surcharge in the correct deduction order, with flat-rate logic applied at the right earnings tier, generating the employer-side output the client needs to submit to the Board of Inland Revenue; contact us about Trinidad and Tobago payroll and your timelines. Workzoom generates. The client submits.