Tax Reform 5: The nuts and bolts of its design
Introduction Last week I claimed the value of taxes not paid in 2010 but which ought to have been paid under the tax code was roughly equivalent to that actually paid ($102 billion). Taxes paid therefore were only about one-half what was theoretically due. This week I consider some important nuts and bolts considerations essential [...]
Tax Reform 4: The taxes we do not pay
I have tried to make it clear that my treating with tax reform in my current columns has been deliberate. It is entirely based on the establishment last December, 2011 of a Tax Reform Committee by the incoming Ramotar administration. I share the view that the tax system is in dire need of reform, but [...]
Tax reform 3: The taxes we pay
Introduction The mindset of five major groups of stakeholders to the tax reform process (individual taxpayers; the law-making authorities; the public at large as beneficiaries of government spending; the tax administration authorities; corporate and other business taxpayers; as well as organisations like unions, farmers’ organisations, consumer groups and professional associations interested in greater transparency, fairness [...]
Tax Reform 2: Blindsided by foolishness and foolhardiness
Introduction There is considerable irony to the fact that, as I pointed out last week, less than six months after the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP 2011-15) had highlighted the ongoing Tax Reform Action Plan (TRAP) in force since 2003 as a “tremendous success,” the incoming minority PPP/C administration, in one of its very first [...]
The politics and economics of tax reform
Part I Introduction Beginning last December 4, 2011 my Sunday columns have been re-visiting the global economic and financial crisis that erupted four years ago in light of two basic considerations. First, its unexpectedly long duration and the continued absence of confident signs of recovery. And second, the emergence of both a new geographic epicentre [...]
Tackling the new epicentre of the global crisis
Introduction At the end of 2010 I was expecting global economic recovery, albeit at a reduced rate, to take place during 2011. A year later, this has not occurred and the risk of a double dip to the Great Recession is depressingly real. During 2011, however, the global dimension of the crisis has become more [...]
Looking back into the future: Another view of the global crisis
Introduction One year ago (November 2010), the 42nd Annual Regional Monetary Studies Conference hosted by the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago paid tribute to my research in the field of money and finance. My reply to the tribute was entitled: Looking Backwards into the Future. In that presentation I sought to portray the ongoing [...]
The global crisis today: Real or manufactured uncertainty
Introduction In last week’s column I completed a brief description of the ten most important channels through which the negative effects of the global financial crisis and economic recession, which erupted in 2008 impacted Guyana and Caricom. That crisis is now referred to as the Great Recession, indicating its harsh severity and at the same [...]
Global crisis: Transmission channels to Guyana
Introduction Last week’s column indicated that, during the coming weeks, I would be assessing the present state of the global crisis, which began in 2008. In that column I also sought to briefly identify the core elements of the global crisis. Additionally I sought to establish that the present crisis could only be properly assessed [...]
Where does the global crisis stand today?
Retrospect When I was first invited by the then Editor-in-Chief David de Caires about a decade ago to write a regular Sunday column for the Stabroek News, which would focus on locating Guyana’s situation in the context of regional and international developments, I readily agreed to undertake this task. At the time, Mr de Caires’ [...]
Suffer the poor and powerless
Unconditional, uncapped, untaxed Present official estimates show that more than one in three Guyanese are so poor that such persons regularly have to subsist on less than G350 or US$1.75 per day. This poverty coexists with distressingly large income and wealth inequality. The poorest 20 per cent of consumers account for only about per 7 [...]
LCDS and MOU: ‘Much ado about nothing’
Introduction Last week’s column looked at the intrinsic double-dealing and its associated opportunism, which drives the low carbon development strategy (LCDS) and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government of Guyana and Norway signed in 2009. I tried to analyze this in a manner that would encourage readers to form their own judgement as [...]
Trust or double-dealing: The Guyana-Norway MOU
Introduction I ended last Sunday’s column with a brief description of the government’s case, which portrays Guyana as a small poor dependent economy confronted with a very difficult international environment yet willing to exchange the global environmental services provided by its pristine forests for compensatory payments through a global exchange mechanism. I concluded the column [...]
The LCDS and MOU Exposed
Weak and volatile Several analysts have directly blamed the absence of a coherent economic strategy to guide Guyana’s development since the PPP/C administration came to power in 1992, for the volatile and inadequate economic growth which has prevailed since. The data for the period reveal that, between 1992 and 1999, annual average real GDP growth [...]
More on the official misuse and abuse of economic statistics
Statistical deception Last week I examined one of two recent instances of what I described as official misuse and abuse of Guyana’s economic statistics. That was the absurd inference contained in the Minister of Agriculture’s boast where he stated that, since the PPP/C administration assumed office in 1992, Guyana’s GDP at current prices (nominal GDP) [...]