The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has extended the Value Added Tax (VAT) and Excise Tax (ET) transitional arrangement timeframe for motor vehicles to May 31.

The GRA, in a press release, yesterday said the extension was made to allow auto dealers to benefit from the transitional arrangement for motor vehicles for which Consumption Tax (C-Tax) was paid but which have not yet been registered. It said the extension was provided for under Section 100 of the VAT Act which allows transitional arrangements to be put in place to prevent any hardship that its implementation may cause.

Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur said the extension would ensure that consumers do no pay excessive prices for vehicles on which C-Tax and ET would have already been paid. He said the GRA realised that it needed to address the issue of auto dealers who would have paid for large capital items such as vehicles and trucks, and paid significant taxes on them though they may not have been registered.

The GRA had earlier introduced transitional arrangements for persons who would have paid C-Tax on goods acquired during December and disposed of them between January and March this year. In January, the GRA had also instituted a transitional arrangement for motor vehicles and published notices relaying this information in the press, however, it said, dealers did not heed the provisions until the extension period ended on February 28, after which several of them complained of having a large number of unregistered vehicles. Consequently, Sattaur said, the extension was extended to May 31, however, he noted, there will be no further transitional arrangement for the payment of C-Tax from June 1.

At the same time, Sattaur said, there is a caveat that will allow dealers to provide lists of all the vehicles that had been subjected to C-Tax and, once they can prove that the tax was applied, they can benefit from the transitional agreement.

Sattaur said once the dealers have done this, the amount of taxes that would have been already paid would be taken into account when the total amount of taxes is computed for the particular vehicle, under the VAT, and payments will only be required on the excess amount. “We do not expect there will be much difference,” Sattaur said, since the introduction of VAT and ET was to enable revenue neutrality or to ensure that persons would not have to pay more taxes than before.