Some 80% of the 2,100 businesses registered for VAT filed their returns on time and 32.8% of those filing returns have claimed refunds; the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) plans to examine these.

During a press briefing yesterday at the GRA Lamaha Street headquarters the Com-missioner General Khurshid Sattaur said 1,674 or 79.7% of the Value Added Tax (VAT) registrants had filed their returns by the February 21 deadline.

Government is projected to garner some $24 billion from VAT this year, but Sattaur declined to state whether the sum collected for January was a twelfth of that figure ($2 billion). He said, however, that the taxes paid have put the GRA in a favourable position.

“So far, we are on target with our revenue collection,” Sattaur said, reading from a prepared statement. Asked about the revenue neutrality of the tax, he was adamant that VAT is a revenue neutral tax, adding that the same revenue gained under the repealed taxes was being gained under VAT.

“Given that VAT is intended to be revenue neutral