Georgetown: The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) recently announced that some $226 billion was raked in for just last year and opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has called out the coalition government administration for failing to keep their promise of lowering taxes.
During his weekly press conference, Jagdeo recalled under the previous Administration when the total taxes collected was $91 billion less. While Government would have assured citizens that these numbers would be lowered, it has, in fact, risen significantly.
The projected number for 2019 was pegged at $88B but the actual figure was $3 billion more.
“We were using the projected figures for 2019 when we said $88B more per year is collected in taxes. Now it’s 91 [billion] when you have the final numbers. In 2014, the last budget that the PPP has was 135 billion in total taxes. In five years, this has gone to $226 billion per year. That means this Government is collecting $91 billion more per year in taxes – the Government that came into office on a promise to lower taxes,” he calculated.
The Opposition Leader specifically reflected on the fact that the common man is required to pay these increases, especially on their utilities.
“Poor people are paying these too as well as wealthy people. Everybody is paying more taxes on water, electricity, everything. And they are proud to announce this, how much they’re taking out of people’s pockets.”
GRA Commissioner-General Godfrey Statia during a recent press conference said “our revenue collections would have increased to just under $230 billion in 2019, which is 27.4 billion more than 2018. That’s 13.8 per cent more than we would have achieved for 2018. That is a sizeable revenue growth, we have constantly been in double figures growth since 2016…We have actually moved revenue collections from 2016 when it was $145 billion, now 2019 it is $230 billion.”
According to Statia, a number of factors are responsible for the increase. Among those factors, as cited by Statia, is the widening of the tax base – in other words, GRA collecting more taxes from people.
“You can see that the efforts of GRA, where it was wide-ranging in making changes and the widening of the tax base, would have led to certain increases…there have been significant increases in gold production and declaration.”
“Significant amount in withholding taxes [has been collected]. Significant amount in taxes on motor vehicles and these things… there has been a reduction in excise tax,” the Commissioner-General also said.
Tax collection has been on the rise for a number of years, with GRA collecting $170 billion in revenue for 2017. In 2018, the agency collected $199 billion in revenue, an increase of what had originally been projected.
While increased tax collection amounts to money for the State coffers, the parliamentary Opposition has long argued that from an economic sense, tax collection without corresponding growth in the economy is a bad combination.
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