Except for the clearing of barrels and personal effects packages, the Guyana Revenue Authority is refusing to process transactions for persons who do not have a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and has been doing very little business at the Licence and Internal Revenue Offices since the year started.
Calls have been sounded again and priority is to be given to TIN processing for persons conducting business at any of the two offices.
The implementation of TIN is progressing well, according to Commissioner General of GRA Khurshid Sattaur, but he pointed out that hundreds of people are still to obtain their TINs, as evidenced by the large number of individuals who are being turned away when they show up to have a transaction processed with the GRA.
As of now, the TIN requirement has been temporarily waived for persons clearing barrels and personal effect packages. Sattaur said that until the office has adequately dealt with those persons conducting transactions with the Licence and Revenue offices, they would not stringently enforce the TIN requirement for persons clearing packages.
Sattaur told reporters yesterday that the first major test of the TIN implementation would be on January 14 when employers would remit December 2007 PAYE deductions on their employees’ behalf.
He emphasized that employers would only be able to remit the taxes of those employees who would have obtained a TIN.
“Persons found culpable of not having a TIN would be required to do so which may result in late submission and payment, which constitutes an offence under the Income Tax Act and the employer could be penalized. It is for this reason that we have been emphasizing the employers’ responsibility in our public relations campaign,” Sattaur said, reading from a prepared statement.
He said the GRA recognised that many persons had not heeded the call to obtain their TIN before the end of 2007 and in order to avoid an agonizing situation it has decided to prioritize. However, he said this preference for persons conducting transactions with the Licence and Revenue offices would only be for a limited time as they accommodate late applicants.
Sattaur noted that TIN was introduced last year for Valued Added Tax registrants and importers processing commercial transactions at the Customs and Trade Administration, adding that that phase of implementation was successful.
He said the GRA had been sensitizing the public extensively on TIN and to date hundreds have been registered largely due to the infrastructural arrangements in place with the Internal Revenue and employers.
With effect from January 1 this year, the TIN implementation was taken to the two remaining areas of the GRA, the Licence Revenue Office and the Internal Revenue Department, in addition to government agencies, public authorities, public corporations and the Bank of Guyana, as provided for under the Income Tax Amendment Act.
TIN is a computer-generated nine-digit number, which identifies persons for the purpose of transacting business with the GRA and other agencies.
Persons who would have applied for their TIN and are not in receipt of their certificates are asked to contact the Registry Section, GPO Building, Robb Street to uplift their numbers while they await the certificates by post.
