The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will be cracking down on self-employed tax evaders, who according to Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur pay less than 25% of the required taxes.
These “hard-to-tax individuals,” Sattaur told a news conference yesterday, currently represent $4 billion in taxes collected annually and included some of the wealthiest persons in Guyana, including many private doctors, dentists, business owners and contractors. This is not the first time that the GRA has pledged to go after these individuals. Sattaur noted that many prominent people evade paying taxes and that the GRA Audit and Verifications Department would be specifically targeting those individuals in 2014.
In some instances, he said, the taxes paid by the self-employed could be less than those paid by a clerk at the GRA. However, he revealed that through the recognition of people’s affluent lifestyles, the GRA suspects that