Dear Editor,
My children are all adults, the youngest has just gotten her master’s degree. I have no personal stake in wanting to see the VAT on private education revoked, but having faced the challenges of educating my children, I am empathetic to the plight of my fellow Guyanese who must now bear this additional cost, and I have this question for those in authority ‒ Minister Jordan, Commissioner General Statia, and President Granger.
Will someone please explain to me, and to my fellow Guyanese, the justification for keeping the VAT because there is “a high-level of non-compliance by private entities,” a statement which was attributed to President Granger in the Chronicle of March 2.
My first question: Why should the parents of students at compliant entities be burdened by something that has absolutely nothing to do with them?
My second question: Can you really hold the parents of students at non-compliant entities for the failure of the entity to comply with their statutory obligations?
My third question: How does imposing VAT on private education address the issue of non-compliance? What is there to prevent the non-compliant entities from simply collecting the VAT and continuing to be non-compliant? Surely the correct thing to do is to go after the non-compliant entities and thereby “widen the tax net” and reduce the burden.
My final question ‒ and this to the President ‒ Is this his “better life for Guyanese”, because to me, it’s looks like a “bitter life”.
Yours faithfully,
Ernest M Ford
