The government is urging the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to enforce the tax laws as it relates to internet cafe owners involved in international telephone calling as they owe the state a substantial amount of revenue.
According to Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon, at its sitting last Thursday, cabinet called on the GRA to proceed more “aggressively” against the tax evaders.
The call by cabinet came days after the GRA announced that it would move to prosecute those persons since the entity had conducted investigations and it was revealed that within recent times, a large number of individuals and entities have become involved in such operations, resulting in a significant reduction in revenue collected from legitimate providers of international service.
“These individuals and businesses have essentially created illegal telecommunications networks that employ authorized VSAT equipment for unlawful purposes or VSAT equipment without the requisite licenses, SIM banks, broadband, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and international Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers like Vonage, Skype, and Packet 8 to offer outbound and inbound voice calls to the public for a fee. These operations are illegitimate and essentially result in tax evasion since no revenue is paid on these calls,” the GRA had declared.
The tax entity had said that it intends to intensify its surveillance and investigative activities in collaboration with the competent relevant sector agencies to identify and prosecute defaulters to the full extent of the law while encouraging the public to report the existence of this type of operations to them.
According to Luncheon a report seen by cabinet suggested that the volume of the internet cafe operations is significant and as a consequence “the tax evasion result in substantial loss of revenue to the state.” Luncheon noted that the tax laws in Guyana make it very clear that once you earn income it is taxable.
