Above the law – commentary

Above the law

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 | BY KNEWS |  EDITORIAL

Guyana seems to be a country that is reluctant to use the law even if application of the law is necessary. Such has been the case that the society believes that there is one law for the poor and another for the wealthy or those who are connected to people in authority.

There has been talk that the police did solve the Monica Reece murder but the then Police Commissioner ducked the evidence because the prime suspect was the son of a friend. To this day, the official position is that the Monica Reece murder was never solved but policemen involved would insist that they solved the murder.

Similarly, there are people who admitted to committing a crime but the police simply botched the evidence. One case involved the shooting of a watchman at a highway resort. There were witnesses who later recanted.

Now we have another situation. Tax laws are inflexible but they are quite clear. Every individual who earns must pay taxes. There are limits to who begins to pay but once the earning exceeds the minimum wage, taxes must be paid. 

Failure to pay taxes is a criminal offence. It is also criminal to pay less than the stipulated amount. Public Servants cannot escape the tax net because the employer is the government. Deductions are made automatically. However, people in the Private Sector and the self-employed can actually cheat.

Being a cash-oriented society, Guyana provides ample opportunity for people to dodge taxes. Even in the most developed society, the authorities cannot track payments. Businesses simply do not charge a tax—in Guyana it is a Value Added Tax—so the purchases, once they are made in liquid cash, are cheaper than what they should be if they are priced in the normal way.

Each year, taxpayers are required to file personal income tax returns. The private employer or the self-employed are expected to indicate their earnings as well as their tax deductibles. The self-employed include the Accountants, the Doctors and the Lawyers. When the government moved to introduce a law to catch the self-employed, there was an objection from the professionals.

The law suggested that there be a minimum amount that the Lawyers, Doctors and Accountants must pay. The lawyers objected and moved to the courts. The Bill was passed in the National Assembly but the lawyers were up in arms. They marched in the streets, and they took the matter to the political platform.

There were arguments that the government was seeking to dictate who should be licensed to practice. But the law does nothing of the sort. So we have the Guyana Revenue Authority listing those who actually paid their taxes or filed their personal income tax returns.

Interestingly, some of the big earners have not paid their taxes. The lowly worker who earns above the minimum wage must pay taxes used to develop the country. The situation is that the poor must support the wealthy.

But this is something that the government has encouraged. Over the years, it has refused to pursue the rich who hide taxes and businesses. The government has repeatedly said that it has gone into business places that actually use two books, one for the genuine transactions and one for the government to peruse.

The Lawyers and Doctors make millions of dollars per month but they pay the least taxes. One Lawyer actually paid $100,000 in taxes for an entire year in 2010 when a person working for $100,000 a month would have paid that amount of tax in a year.

We now notice that the high priced lawyers have not even paid their taxes.  One of them was paid US$5 million for services rendered but even that was not touched by the taxman. Some of these lawyers would not see a client unless that client can pay at least $10 million.

We must now wait and see if the Guyana Revenue Authority has the gumption to press charges. In the United States none escaped the Internal Revenue Department. Millionaires have gone to jail for dodging taxes.
Here we have tax dodgers and we must now wait and see if the government would be afraid to act against them.