Guyana Stores Limited (GSL) has “done what [it] had to do” as it relates to repayment of a $3.8 billion debt that was owed to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), co-owner of the company Tony Yassin has said.
Speaking to Stabroek News at his office at GSL last week, Yassin was not open to giving details of the settlement between the company and the GRA but related that they have “done what we had to do” and have paid some amount of money.
However, he refused to state how much and according to him, he would hope that the matter is now settled between the company and the tax agency. He said that the move was no simple task but they paid their monies before the amnesty period ended.
In July last year, Commissioner-General of the GRA, Godfrey Statia, had told Stabroek News that GSL had paid the GRA “a few hundreds of millions” and discussions were ongoing on how the remainder of its $3.8 billion tax debt will be paid. The debt is the result of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling against GSL’s constitutional challenge to the 2% minimum corporation tax applied by the GRA under the Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act. GSL was given two extensions to make its payments to the GRA since the March 2018 ruling.
The court told GSL that it should have utilised the specialised procedure provided under the Income Tax Act to challenge the GRA, rather than bring claims for constitutional relief in matters where not only was an alternative remedy available but that remedy was the natural and statutorily provided recourse. To do otherwise, it argued, was “an abuse of process.”
GSL received a demand, dated May 2012 from the then GRA Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur for the sum of $3,811,346,397 in unpaid taxes and chose to institute proceedings in the courts of Guyana.
Having lost at both the High Court and Appellate Court, GSL appealed the matter at the level of the CCJ, which subsequently dismissed GSL’s appeal and ordered the company to pay costs to the three respondents: the Attorney General, the Revenue Authority and the Commissioner-General.
Stabroek News also tried to contract Statia last week to no avail.