A TOTAL of $4B will be added annually to disposable income due to the reduced income tax threshold as government seeks to put money into workers’ pockets, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan said Friday night in the National Assembly.
“This is money that can either be saved, purchase a car, help with a house or go on a vacation,” he said. Jordan said government has decided to release the pressure on low and middle- income families. While noting that it is a win for workers, Jordan said government will try to reduce rates progressively to make things competitive.

“We proposed to reduce the tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent on the first $180,000 and 40 per cent for anything thereafter, mean effectively that at the highest level, no one will pay more than 26.7 per cent of their total income taxes,” he said
Underscoring that only a quarter of income will be taxable, Minister Jordan said in 2017 both the threshold and the new marginal rates will kick in. Noting that there will be strategies to address the groups that are hard to tax, Minister Jordan said one such group are contractors who receive large sums of money to undertake projects, but are not in full compliance with their tax obligations.

“By failing to disclose incomes from all sources, these persons do not pay their fair share of taxes, and there will be measures to extend the tax net,” the Finance Minister said.
“It is time that we all pay our fair share of taxes and share the burden of taxes which are a necessary evil.”
Meanwhile, he said there will now be a fee attached to the issuance of TIN certificates and its copies. Jordan said of the 21,000 certificates issued each year, 60 per cent are replacements.
He said businesses and non-resident companies that fail to keep accounting records make it hard for the revenue authority to be able to assess incomes and taxes will attract a fine of $1M.

He said the Income Tax Act will also increase the penalty of filing after the due date, in addition to not filing a return even if there was a loss. A taxpayer will now have to file a NIL return, or face the penalty of paying $50,000.
Opposition Parliamentarian Bishop Juan Edghill questioned whether taxpayers will actually be taking home more money, or will they actually be paying out more money in taxes.
He said the new measure for the Income Tax Act should have simplified the refund process for Guyanese.