Georgetown: Tax remissions for this year are projected to hit the $47B mark, an increase of almost $5B from last year. The disclosures were contained in the recent ‘Budget Speech for 2018’, that has been released to the public by Finance Minister, Winston Jordan.
It meant that Guyana, because of those tax remissions, gave up $47B in revenues because of duty free entitled by remigrants, diplomats and investors, among other categories.
By their very existence, Government ministries and other agencies are not required to pay taxes on imports, among other things.
According to Appendix VII- Tax Remissions by Category, there was a marked increase in what companies did not have to pay in taxes and duties.
Last year, companies and businesses were waived $30.444B compared to a projected $35.125B this year.
Under the laws, investors, churches, diplomats, government ministries and agencies and remigrants are all eligible to have those tax remissions. In the case for the hospitals, there was a reduction.
Last year, it was $323M as compared to an expected $141M this year.
Significantly, churches and charitable organizations received as much remissions this year. Last year it was $1.455B while the projections for 2017 are $1.459B.
There, however, is a reduction in the amount of duty free that public officials benefitted from- it was $1.446B while it is expected to be $1.132B this year.
The ministries and other government departments will see an increase this year to $4.982B from $4.111B.
There was also a reduction in the tax remissions for remigrants- it was $1.237B last year but $0.838B this year.
Even the category of diplomats saw a reduction of what the Guyana Revenue Authority would have lost out from. Last year, it was $1.807B compared to an anticipated $1.303B this year.
However, the tax remissions for foreign funded projects would have jumped this year. In 2016, it was $1.473B compared to a projected $2.053B this year.
Over the year, the issue of tax remissions especially to some businesses and remigrants were hot topics with accusations of abuse for profits. There were even reports of scams being run using fake duty free letters.
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