Komal Chand calls for tax reform
GOVERNMENT Member of Parliament (MP) Komal Chand has bemoaned the delays in addressing the promised review of Guyana’s tax system.
Last Thursday night in the National Assembly, Chand said: “I feel constrained to express my disappointment that the income tax threshold has not been further adjusted. I am also disappointed to learn that the tax reform alluded to two years ago has not been realised.”
Accordingly, he called on Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh to intervene and, by Budget 2015, ensure that the long-awaited reform process sees the light of day.
In 2012, President Donald Ramotar had reaffirmed his commitment to reviewing the country’s system of taxation, and had announced that the tax reform process was expected to be completed within the next three to four months.
“We are working on it, and we hope to finish it in another three to four months,” the President had then said.
He announced in 2011 that the issue of tax reform was being addressed by a panel comprising Chartered Accountant Ronald Ali, Businessman Clifford Reis and Economist Dr. Cyril Solomon.
However, in March this year, the Head of State, in an update, disclosed that the committee was in the process of concluding the work it had undertaken, working closely with experts from an overseas university.
President Ramotar has said that the work of this body would advise the Government on the way forward in regard to the tax system.
“Tax is the lifeblood of Government revenue, so it has to be handled very carefully and not in a piecemeal manner,” he said.
The promise of a tax regime review, including an appraisal of the Value Added Tax (VAT), was pushed during his campaign in the lead-up to the 2011 general and regional elections.
The PPP/C manifesto that was launched on October 23, 2011 had promised to examine options for making the tax system more family-friendly, including through personal income tax relief, conditional on the number of dependent children.
Former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo had noted that the manifesto had proposed a taxation system that provided enough resources to address concerns of poor people, rather than acting as a disincentive to them.
(By Vanessa Narine)