Eight economic centres outside of the city including Corriverton, Linden and Parika contributed only 2% of the revenues of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) in 2014.
According to Chairman of the GRA, Rawle Lucas the authority “must acknowledge the sad reality of tax non-compliance in Guyana” and begin to comprehensively address the issue.
At a press conference on Friday, he said that in order to do this the agency must clearly establish and understand its tax base. Thus in an effort to do this GRA has begun to disaggregate the revenue collection data by sector, industry, regions and important economic hubs per sector.
This activity which is expected to include data from 2006-2014 has so far revealed surprising information.
According to Lucas there seems to be an inverse relationship between the number of registered tax payers and those paying taxes.
“In an economy growing at an annual average of 4 and 5% the number of persons paying taxes was surprising,” Lucas said.
He added that an examination of the 2014 revenue data of eight economic hubs excluding Georgetown has revealed that “revenue collection does not match observed levels of economic activity” as these hubs comprising Anna Regina, Bartica, Corriverton, Lethem, Linden, New Amsterdam, Ogle and Parika have contributed only 2% of the revenue collected in 2014.
Particularly concerning is the revenue collected in Corriverton, Anna Regina and Bartica.
Lucas noted that Corriverton which boasts a multisectoral economy and booming trade sector contributed only $1.3B to GRA in 2014 though it would have been expected to have contributed substantially more than Linden which has a “much narrower economic base.” Linden’s revenue totalled $1.1B.
Also expected were high returns from the areas of Anna Regina and Bartica. Yet these two areas combined could not do as well or even better than the relatively depressed economic area of New Amsterdam.
In such cases where voluntary compliance has obviously failed to result in accurate revenue compliance, Lucas notes that GRA must use its enforcement unit.
“When tax collection reaches the level of enforcement, the demands of GRA become more onerous on the taxpayer,” he said even as he noted that “GRA is required to enforce where voluntary compliance is lacking.”
He acknowledged that anxiety, desperation and inconvenience could together force taxpayers to engage in illicit transactions which they feel might being relief.
He however urged taxpayers not to expose themselves to prosecution and charged all GRA staff to act always with the view of achieving the best outcomes for taxpayers and the government.
He stressed that enforcement officers are to conduct themselves with the utmost professionalism and those who are found to have breached the employee code of conduct “will be dealt with.”
Acknowledging that the Law Enforcement and Investigation (LEID) arm has in the past faced several challenges in the area of sufficient equipment especially firearms, acting Commissioner General of the GRA, Ingrid Griffith said that the agency is looking to upgrade the firepower of its officers.
Griffith said that the GRA wishes to ensure that its staff members are comfortable and safe in the execution of their duties and therefore has requested additional firearms that are up to date.
‘It is so that they will have the same power that the smugglers have with their firearms because their firearms are updated and we have to match their firepower. We have asked for those firearms and the government is trying to give us that,” Griffith said.
