SARAH Fernandes, a 14-year-old Fourth Form student of the North West Secondary School in Region One (Barima/Waini) is the winner of the national Caribbean Organisation for Tax Administrators (COTA) essay competition.

According to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Fernandes’ essay was based on the topic, “If I were the head of my country’s Tax Administration, what would I do to increase tax revenues to fund the Government’s development programmes?”
Fernandes, along with Naiome Bacchus of St Joseph High and Crystal Wills of Queen’s College copped the first, second and third prizes, respectively. The winners received honours at a simple ceremony at Cara Lodge on Thursday last.
The GRA said the essay was impressive enough to earn Fernandes 98 out of 100 marks by an evaluating panel.
Fernandes, along with 25 other students from schools across the country and their Caribbean counterparts, vied for the top honours after the competition was launched in March 2017.
Participating schools were required to submit three essays (800-1000 words) on the abovementioned topic.
GRA said the submissions were required of students grades 9-11 and graded for knowledge and understanding of the tax administration function, the country’s tax structure and current modernisation drivers, relevance and depth of research, quality of argument, ingenuity of ideas and use of examples/ illustrations, use of proper grammar and punctuation.
The evaluation was done by a panel of senior officers from the GRA which then submitted the finalists to COTA for entries at the regional leg of the competition.
The first prize trophy was presented to Fernandes by Commissioner-General of the GRA, Godfrey Statia.
Statia said the initiative by COTA must be applauded, since it provides the opportunity for introducing youths to taxation and allows the GRA to garner feedback about the youths’ perception of taxation.
“The entrants’ interests reveal that there may be the need to include taxation as part of the education curriculum,” the commissioner-general said.
Amidst the accolades, the pupils were encouraged to continue showing interest in reading, writing and in-depth research if they want to excel.
The essay competition is a major element of the public education component of the COTA work programme which is aimed at stimulating broad interest in taxation matters.