‘Rich, foreign companies should pay their taxes’ – VP condemns M&CC’s tax waiver to One Communications 

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Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has joined in condemning the cash-strapped Georgetown Mayor and City Council for its granting of a 25 per cent tax waiver to One Communications, formerly known as GTT.

“It’s ridiculous, they claim they don’t have money, these are big companies, they have huge assets here…they should pay their fair share of taxes at the City Council. Why do you have to give a foreign company that’s flushed with cash…and you’re giving them waivers. It’s ridiculous!” the Vice President said during his press conference on Thursday.
According to Jagdeo, if the M&CC wanted to grant tax waivers, it should do so in the form of an across-the-board policy. However, the Vice President said foreign companies ought not to benefit from such policies.

“Why should we be giving rich, foreign companies that make a ton of money waiver of their taxes in the city,” he contended.

Town Clerk Candace Nelson had explained that the decision to grant the tax waiver was taken after the multibillion-dollar company raised an issue with the Council.

“GTT raised…that they believe that the taxes that they were paying on one of their properties seem to be too much compared with another business that they mentioned. So, it was decided then in a nutshell that they can do another valuation for that property. And when that valuation is presented to the Council, well, the Council basically is going to meet and decide how they’re going to deal with it,” Nelson said.

She added that following the re-evaluation of the property, it was proposed that a 25 per cent waiver be placed on the interest accumulated by the company.

“The Mayor later attended one of the finance committee meetings, and he raised the issue on any other business. And the recommendation was made at that finance committee meeting that when the valuation is provided by GTT, it will most likely be backdated and the interest that would be accumulated on that account should receive a 25 per cent waiver. So that recommendation is what was sent to the Council…and the Council by majority approved that recommendation,” the town clerk added.

Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Sonia Parag has since lambasted the M&CC over its decision. “This decision comes at a time when the Council continuously laments its financial woes and requests bailouts from Central Government, claiming to be cash-strapped. It is baffling that while pleading poverty, the Council finds it prudent to forgo significant revenue that could have been utilised to improve vital services such as garbage collection, market management, and overall sanitation – all areas in which they have consistently, and miserably failed,” Parag had argued.

Parag had also noted that the move is unlawful. She explained that Section 215(3) of the Municipal and District Councils Act, Cap. 28:01, clearly stipulates that any discount on rates due must not exceed 10 per cent.
Meanwhile, this controversial move comes some months after the Council had passed an ‘Institutional Rate Policy’ seeking to exempt political parties from paying rates and taxes or reducing those sums as low as 25 per cent – a move that would benefit the Peoples National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which owes the Council millions in taxes.
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