Tax-free salaries?
EDITORIAL
Stabroek News
April 9, 2004
Section 13 of the Income Tax Act only exempts the official emoluments received by the President of Guyana from taxes and an amendment to this section will soon be tabled in parliament to include the emoluments of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice.
Under which section of the act, then, have a number of public servants been enjoying tax-free salaries?
Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur, his predecessor, Edgar Heyliger and Deputy Commissioner General, Clement Sealy are among the list of 21 public servants who receive(d) US dollar salaries and have been paying no income taxes.
It is inconsistent for the head and deputy head of the revenue-collecting agency to seek to increase tax collections, especially income tax collections, and not be paying income taxes themselves. What moral authority would these gentlemen have in asking lawyers, doctors and other categories of self-employed persons to pay their fair share of taxes when they themselves are not paying income taxes?
Let's get it straight, no one begrudges Sattaur, Sealy or any other public servant a decent wage. You have to pay a decent salary to be able to motivate workers and this goes for all public servants, not just a select few, and value for money has to be assured. However, it makes a mockery of the tax system when a chosen few are exempted from income taxes. It is more equitable when everyone starts paying their fair share of taxes, including the Commissioner General and his deputy.
Mr Sattaur and Mr Sealy should pay income taxes at the prescribed rate and every US salaried public official should also pay their taxes.
On a US dollar salary of $4000-$5000 (G$800 000 to $1M) per month, the tax obligation of between $250,000 and $300,000 a month would be affordable. After all, every chief executive in Guyana would have been paying their fair share of income taxes on salaries, which may not have been as high as this, without offering a complaint, though it is true that large numbers of self-employed businessmen, farmers and professionals have not been making their due contribution.
We all have an obligation to pay our taxes to help develop Guyana and it is unfair to create a parallel regime for a select few officials. We do not have an economy in which some are more equal than others.