Following much debate about Guyana’s petroleum tax regime and cost recovery, tax chief Godfrey Statia has said that the 2% royalty paid to the government under the 2016 production sharing agreement with ExxonMobil Guyana is not cost in determining the country’s share of profit oil but rather an expense in determining the contractors’ taxable income.
In a statement yesterday, Statia, the Commissioner-General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), said that the agency was moved to respond to address some instances of “misinformation” in wake of conflicting reports and calculations in the press related to royalty payments to the government, and the recoverability thereof.