Personal tax rate higher than Corporative tax- Economist Christopher Ram on Budget 2011.

Waterloo Street, Georgetown- For the first time ever in Guyana’s history the personal tax rate is higher than the Corporative tax. This is according to Economist Christopher Ram speaking to CaribbeanTrakker today on the mega budget unveiled yesterday. Talking to him from an economic perspective of the budget, Ram said that the average rate of tax for an individual is about 65% which is unacceptable and a crude decision by the Finance Ministry.He added that the Finance Minister should have brought it down to 30% and it is time for the country to return to a more progressive form of taxation with a system of personal allowances. Ram said that the Minister in his budget made a very optimistic projection and assumption that it will get all the low carbon development strategy funds including the 40 million US dollars from Norway. He said that this is not a good basis to do budgeting particularly when Guyana has such a massive deficit, adding that the country is somewhere around 27%  overall deficit balance of total revenue.