Dear Editor,
Thanks to Dhanraj for taking the time and effort to indulge in this debate. More Guyanese should get involved. (Ref – Dhanraj Deonarine’s letter, “Is the NRF really overstated?”, SN Jan. 13th).
Here is the larger question on the subject:
How can Oil Companies prepare their tax returns, submit them to GoG – and say here, you pay the tax for me out of your profit-share – and send us the tax receipts?
Try to make sense of this question. I think something got badly mixed up when the drafters wrote this in the Production Sharing Agreement. I would urge GoG to work with Exxon to have this anomaly corrected.
Dhanraj and AG Nandlall seem to be saying: It doesn’t matter whether the money sits in NRF Account or Conso-lidated Fund. They are really saying to hell with Accounting Integrity, this is a non-issue.
GoG issuing tax receipts to Oil Companies – when in fact none is paid – makes GoG complicit in a tax fraud scheme involving the U.S. govt. [In this case, the U.S. govt is defrauded. U.S. Companies operating abroad pay corporate income tax on profits made in the Host country; they collect tax receipts which are then submitted with their Corporate Tax Returns to the U.S. govt (Internal Revenue Service) – where they receive full credit for every dollar tax paid to the Host country].
Chris Ram’s position makes a whole lot of sense to me. If GRA issued tax receipts to Oil Companies, then GRA must show it received the monies stated on those receipts (show the debit and credit entries on NRF’s and GRA’s accounts respectively). Ram is raising a very legitimate question of National Accounting Integrity. No money paid out from NRF to GRA, says Ram, that means the money is still sitting in NRF – and therefore NRF account is overstated by the amount that should have been paid to satisfy the amounts stated on those tax receipts. Period.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
