Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine has called on Minister responsible for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh to ensure that the same respect that is given to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and National Insurance Scheme (NIS) when it comes to compliance, is given to Local Authorities when it comes to the payment of taxes.
For many years, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has been cash-strapped with billions owed in rates and taxes from several businesses in the City.
The Mayor says that there are ways to fix this. Though other options have been examined, on Friday, at a press briefing, the Mayor presented the option of it being mandatory for persons and businesses to show that they are compliant with their Local Authority taxes before they are allowed to do business with the Government.
“Minister Ashni Singh should put in place compulsory Compliance from all Local Authorities. The same way you need a Compliance from NIS and GRA you should need a Compliance from your Local Authorities, where you’re living [to show] that you’re paying taxes to your NDC, to your Municipality and if you’re not up-to-date with these taxes, you cannot do business with Government,” Narine proposed.
Being compliant with the GRA means that a particular business pays its fair share of taxes while being compliant with the NIS means the rightful contribution for the business/employees is being paid.
The Mayor said that he is concerned that the Government is not leading the way in such an initiative as it is the Members of Parliament who help to bring laws and regulations into effect. He also suggested that the Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Gobind Ganga push for Local Authorities compliance to become a requirement to receiving bank loans.
“There are many companies out there not honoring the Local Authorities taxes and the Local Authorities have a role to play in Government as well. Why aren’t we questioning these things? You’re going and do business with Government, a multi-million-dollar contract awarded to you and you don’t have a Local Authorities Compliance where the office of your company resides?” the Mayor pointed out.
He said that without such measures in place, many persons are becoming involved in prescriptive rights issues.
He said the M&CC is currently working on a policy whereby individuals can no longer pay rates and taxes on behalf of another person without providing their Identification Card or Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Certificate for identification.
