Guyana Revenue Authority is “robbing” vehicle owners

Apr 19, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
This is a letter to the Commissioner-General of GRA, Mr. Godfrey Statia. Please reproduce in the Kaieteur News for emphasis. I am a Guyanese who currently resides abroad. I left Guyana in 2008 but since 2013 have returned annually. I own two motor cars in Guyana. One was left with relatives for their use and the other was parked due to mechanical problems.
In 2015 I decided to fix the motor car with mechanical problems and wanted to use said motor car on the roads again. I visited GRA to obtain a road licence for the current year but was told that I have to pay for all previous years back, this I find to be robbery since this vehicle has been parked and not in use on the roads. GRA has indicated that because I did not inform them that I would not be using the vehicle, I still have to pay for years back regardless that the vehicle was not in use and not on the road.
Since the law requires a Road Licence for use on the roads, and the police regularly check for this document making it impossible to use a vehicle without said document, why is GRA robbing the Guyanese people by requiring that they pay for years when the vehicle is not in use?. Also, most Guyanese are unaware of this requirement of notifying GRA when a vehicle is not in use. Even worse is the fact that now in 2017, even if you are to notify GRA that the vehicle will be parked and not in use on the roads, you are still required to pay for all past years if you ever decide to use the vehicle in the future.
This represents another tax on the Guyanese populace just for owning a vehicle even though it is not in use. This problem seems to be affecting many persons since I raised this issue while at GRA and many persons remarked that they too had experienced the same problem, but were held to ransom and had no choice but to pay. Also there is no agency to report complaints about the GRA to.
Moises Carpenay

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