The Government has made it clear that it intends to utilise all avenues to go after delinquent taxpayers to ensure they comply with the relevant tax laws of the country.
During his presentation of the 2016 Budget in the National Assembly last Friday, Finance Minister, Winston Jordan said it has been observed that the country’s tax structure is yielding uneven amounts of revenue; an issue that continues to place economic strain on the country’s financial system.
“The numbers suggest that there is a large population of delinquent taxpayers out there, prominent among whom are the self-employed and persons paying contributors’ tax. We are concerned about the failure of both categories to pay their fair share of taxes”, he noted.
Jordan said Government will be encouraging GRA to intensify its efforts at undertaking evaluations of tax revenues by impact of exemptions, economic centres and economic sectors. “The reason is to enable better targeting of those taxpayers who are not in compliance with the tax laws and to understand the reasons for non-compliance, so that we could help them to do better”, he reasoned.
The Minister said once the evaluations are completed, there should be a determination of the economic value of concessions to the country, align economic centres with geographic regions and gain a better understanding of which industries are not paying their fair share of taxes and why.
According to him, a simple analysis of tax collections has shown that only three parts of the tax structure are contributing meaningfully to government revenues. They are: income tax, production and consumption taxes, and import duties.
“It is with the need to remedy this situation of revenue leakage that the GRA is being asked to undertake a sensitisation and awareness exercise in order to help taxpayers to fulfil their obligations”, he said.
Only late last month, Chairman of the Governing board of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) Rawle Lucas said that when communities fail to produce the revenues that reflect their observed level of economic activity, the GRA would have to use its enforcement authority.
pay your taxes fool! the government need every single penny in revenue to raise the billions of dollars it set aside in the budget to bail out guysuco from the muck it is in after the losers in the former ppp government ran the corporation bankrupt!
as a citizen you have to fulfill your civic duties and one such responsibilities is to pay your damn taxes! the “big joke” here is actually on you because, you see a link with ripping-off the revenue agency and boosting the economy yet you have the gall to bring attention to chartered accountants. guyana have too many dullards and that is a big big reason why the country is the way it is. PAY YOUR FLIPPIN’ TAXES AND ENCOURAGE THOSE AROUND YOU TO DO LIKEWISE!
Big Joke!
Don’t try to run after them because they are creating job and boosting economy. You can’t do anything to such people because you all know that them have charted accountants.
Spend your energy in creating job, finding market for our produce and encourage small and medium scale business including agriculture, mining and sugar industry.
Pay up…Govt sounds warning to delinquent taxpayers.
People are stupid but that as stupid as these installed PNC clowns think they are.
No one in the PNC circles with pay their taxes and those that were exposed already will get back all they paid in..Like the Mooklall and Ramgoat and the big big City hall man wife and de criminal lawyers all who were exposed for tax evasion and settle for small amounts will be reimburse..the poor will foot the bill now..