The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) received more than $4 billion in income tax from the self-employed last year but according to Auditor General Deodat Sharma only a mere 20% of the active registrants filed returns.
In the 2016 Auditor General’s Report, which was tabled in the National Assembly two Thursdays ago, Sharma noted that “as at 31 December 2016, there were 131,893 registered self-employed persons in the TRIPS [Total Revenue Integrated Pro-cessing System] database, of which 92,326 were identified as active. However, only 18,337 persons or 20% of the active registrants filed returns, therefore a total of 73,989 persons or 80% of the active registrants did not file their tax returns.”
Similarly, in 2015, 78,993 persons did not file their returns, while in 2014 only 37,252 returns were filed though there were 85,753 active self-employ-ed persons.