The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) said it has granted 32 tax exemption letters for head teachers to buy motor vehicles.
Last year Cabinet approved exemptions for 68 head teachers and 29 were given tax exemption approval letters, the GRA said in a press release. Director of the Remission Unit Roopnarine Ramkishun said the remaining 39 had not been given letters “because the head teachers who had been approved have not provided the relevant information” to the unit.
Ramkishun said there was an initial hiccup as one criterion in the agreement between the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) and the government was that the qualifying head teacher must have at least five years of service remaining at the time the concession is granted. He said head teachers from the 2007 batch were still eligible since their five-year period of service will be considered from January 1, 2007.
In response to recent media reports, which alleged that only one head teacher had obtained a vehicle, Ramkishun said this might have occurred because the agent had been unable to deliver vehicles to the concessionaire. He said the GRA had no control over this situation and it had to be resolved between those two parties.
According to the GRA, in order to accelerate the processing of tax exemption approvals last month, it had removed the requirement of a driver’s licence for the head teachers who qualify for the exemptions. This change was made in collaboration with the government and the GTU.
