Not in my store
Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News
January 29, 2007
If the Peeper were a businessman and the officers of the Guyana Revenue Authority were coming to the Peeper's business to check on whether VAT was being properly implemented, and if when those officers visited they were accompanied by their video camera and public relations unit, I would respectfully ask them to leave.
Over the past few weeks, the professional work of monitoring the implementation of VAT has seemingly merged with the public relations damage-control campaign of the Guyana Revenue Authority.
This means that technical staff of the GRA is visiting businesses and while they are assessing your readiness for VAT, they are videoing the interview and re-broadcasting this on local television.
This is a most unpleasant development. If the GRA staff is visiting businesses to assess the implementation and compliance with VAT, there should be no attempt to use that footage for PR purposes. To do so is a breach of confidentiality that should exist between the GRA and its tax clients.
It matters not whether the owners or managers of the businesses visited consent to the videoing of the interview. Tax professionals do not operate that way. They have absolutely no right to be televising their assessments on any business's compliance with the tax laws, even if the owner so consents.
What else is the owner to do? How many business owners in Guyana are going to be brave enough to tell the GRA officers that they are free to conduct their assessments but they cannot video or interview the owner and re-broadcast this to the public?
The videoing is professionally unacceptable, and from a commercial point of view creates an unfair advantage to those businesses that are lucky enough to be visited.
At the same time, certain businesses can suffer if for example it is found that they may have misinterpreted the VAT requirements and this fact is aired on national television.
I am now more than ever convinced that the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Government of Guyana have made a mess of the implementation of VAT. I wonder what the President has to say about the fact that in excess of thirty categories of items were recently added to the zero-rated list of VAT.
How could VAT have been implemented without these items being zero-rated?
Who was responsible for these omissions, assuming of course that they were an omission since it is difficult to contemplate any government simply deliberately charging VAT on these basic consumer items.
I am convinced that it was class interest that moved the government to extend the list of zero-rated items. However, the class interest was not that of the working class.
I believe that the political protests over VAT were feeble and would not have caused the government to budge from its original decision to allow certain basic food items to attract VAT.
What moved the government, as is evident from the new zero-rated list, was the powerful influence of the bourgeoisie class which has been able to have the government remove the VAT on transportation services on interior flights and the road and ferry services operated by persons who have agreements to do so with the Government of Guyana.
Even if one could accept the explanation that the government was mindful of the impact of the effect of VAT on the cost of hinterland transportation, where poverty is at its deepest, how does one explain the zero-rating of internet services in Guyana ?
Surely the working class people of this country do not have any significant access to the Internet. The service providers cater mainly for the better-off folks who can at least afford to have a computer to connect to the worldwide web. A computer is a luxury to the poor man.
How also does one explain the concession on ink cartridges? Why does this have to be zero-rated? Who will benefit from the zero-rating of this item? How can one justify zero-rating ink cartridges when the poor man's transportation, bicycles, still attracts a 16 per cent VAT?
Do you really believe that it is the working class that will benefit appreciably from the removal of VAT from services and spectacles prescribed by an optometrist? Do you believe that without the assistance of the NIS vouchers a great many poor people can afford spectacles in this country?
The recent amendment is also a boon to dentists. Preparations for oral and dental hygiene, including denture fixative paste, powder and floss will now be free of VAT. I wonder whether this will reduce the lines of the poor at the Cheddi Jagan Dental School .
I have a great deal of respect for the Minister of Finance. I believe that he is going to make a far better Minister than Jagdeo ever was. However, I ask readers to look beyond the assuredness and confidence of the Minister of Finance when he presented to the nation the additional list of items that are going to be zero-rated. I urge them to examine the class interests that are primarily served by this recent addition to the list of zero-rated items.
I urge the working class not to get too excited by the fact that cooking oil, salt biscuits - at last salt biscuits - chicken, beef and pork, black eye peas and toilet paper are now free of VAT.
These are the crumbs that have fallen at your feet. The recent amendments to the schedule of the zero-rated list of VAT items were inspired by the lobby of the capitalist class.