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The tax system is unfair to decent, hardworking citizens

Sep 21, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I found this passage in Fred Kissoon’s column in Kaiteur News:
Quote: “Mr. Sattaur should reply to me and tell me how many cars he owns and what models his sons have. For readers’ benefit, Mr. Sattaur is the neighbour of his PPP colleague, Donald Ramotar and lives next to President Jagdeo’s house in ‘Pradoville.’ Mr. Sattaur should also state for the Guyanese people if it is acceptable that he is exempt from paying income tax”.
As a Guyanese I am profoundly disturbed if this question is true: “Is Mr. Sattaur exempt from paying income tax?” And, if this is true, could you the authorities, explain the basis in law that prescribes such exemption and for what category of civil servants and/or elected politicians?
I am a Guyanese who has lived in the United States for the last 40-years. In July while visiting Guyana, a relative in commenting on his newly acquired car told me this bizarre story about taxes: In order for him to take ownership for his car he had to purchase an additional “one and a half cars for the government”. Unable to comprehend him, he explained that the tax rate on his model car is 150 percent. (Other more expensive models can run as high as 250 percent).
Such exorbitant tax rates are not unusual or shocking if a government wants to discourage their citizens from buying particular goods for valid reasons. Maybe we have too many cars in Guyana choking the roadways. In this case Government should build back the railways.
What disturbed me was when my relative related the categories of civil servants and ministers of the government import expensive cars and pay no custom duties.
Working class people struggle so hard, earning much less money than these high-earning civil servants and ministers, yet they must be burdened with paying 150 percent custom duty just for the “necessity, not luxury” for owning a basic, utility car.
This tax system is not just unfair to decent, hardworking citizens, but unconscionable. It is a throwback to the medieval ages.
The citizens of Guyana have got to start to organise, rise up and overthrow a palpable iniquitous tax system.
Now this matter about Khurshid Sattaur; is it really true he is exempt from income tax?
Mike Persaud

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