–$199 Billion collected in revenues for 2018

COURT cases related to billions of dollars in owed revenues are backlogged and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has written to the Chancellor of the Judiciary to address the accumulation of cases for the tax body.

This is according to the GRA’s Commissioner-General, Godfrey Statia, on Friday during a press briefing with the media at the tax agency’s Camp Street, Georgetown Headquarters.

“There are cases that are 14-15 years old that have not been brought up as yet, we are trying to get our tax cases behind us,” he said

The tax chief disclosed that the cases in the backlog amount to just over GY$14 Billion while GRA has won approximately $5 Billion from other tax cases and this sum is still being paid over to the agency.

Regarding revenues owed to GRA, Statia added that the Guyana Stores Limited (GSL) had made a sizeable down payment and the two parties are currently in the process of negotiating how the remainder will be paid.

The GRA had won a $4Billion case against Guyana Stores at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in March 2018.

Meanwhile, the GRA announced that it collected $199Billion in revenues for 2018 as compared to the $171Billion the authority received the previous year (2017).

Statia said that the GRA had only budgeted to collect $181 Billion in revenues for that year.

The Commissioner-General also disclosed that the sum of $15 Billion in arrears was collected of which $7 Billion resulted from the tax amnesty.

He emphasized, “GRA is not in the business of driving people out of business, we try to work along with the taxpayer for them to pay their taxes. Taking away assets from the taxpayer is the last resort. It’s not Guyana Stores alone; there are many other taxpayers that have lost their cases. So, we have to work along with them so that we can collect rather than seize.”

On the issue of tax evaders, the Commissioner-General said that GRA continues to work with those persons to pay up their taxes. The excess of debt for taxes which are in arrears and would also include taxes in objection is about $40Billion, he said.

“Evaders are a continual process and would also include penalties because under Sections 10 and 11 (of the constitution), GRA could fine them as much as 100 per cent of what they have understated and, in some cases, we can take them to court, and they can go to prison for about six months.”

Statia explained that tax evasion could include VAT, customs and income tax.