$20B in VAT exemptions granted in 2016 so far

All Value Added Tax related operations are being streamlined. This is according to new Commissioner General at the Guyana Revenue Authority, Godfrey Statia.

The Ministry of Finance has reported that there have been shortfalls in the collection of the Value Added Tax and, as a result there is a plan to stream line operations including how exemptions for the tax are granted.

Statia says for the first half of 2016 some 20 billion dollars in VAT has been exempted so far.

However, he notes that this figure includes exemptions for previous years.

A part from exemptions he also highlighted other areas where work is needed in order to bring VAT collections back.  “The second thing is that there are a lot of leakages at the imports level which we will have to shift our resources to reduce that and the third thing, at the domestic level we also have to shift our resources to the enforcement mode so that we could go behind the businesses for them to comply,” Statia said.

Godfrey Statia officially took up the post of commissioner general on July 25 after being shortlisted during interviews and emerging as the number one ranked candidate for the job.