Atlantic Fuels import probe… Van West-Charles summoned by GRA

Jan 08, 2019 News

A senior official of Atlantic Fuels Inc. has been called in by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) amid a probe to determine how much money the country may have lost because of under-invoicing.
Sources indicate that Dr. Richard Van West-Charles, a director of Atlantic Fuels, was asked to visit the authority’s headquarters, on Camp Street. He was seen entering the offices shortly before noon yesterday, to meet with GRA’s Commissioner-General, Godfrey Statia.
GRA would be interested in receiving its share of taxes from shipments made over time by Atlantic Fuels. The tax losses are believed to be upwards of $100M.
While Commissioner-General Statia was not available for calls yesterday, well-placed sources indicated that there is an across-the-board probe involving other fuel importers.
With fuel prices pretty much standard across the world, GRA could go back and re-assess the invoices submitted by Atlantic Fuels and ask the company to pay the difference in the taxes.
GRA has been finding evidence of collusion between staffers and operators, including gallons being recorded as litres and even wrongdoing by Customs brokers.

Atlantic Fuels Inc. Director, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles

There are at least two instances involving Atlantic Fuels and what appear to be fake invoices being submitted. On the fake invoices were two fuel shipments done between September and October last year, where the cost of the diesel was declared about 50 percent less.
It appeared that GRA was not paying much attention.
Dr. Van West-Charles is the chief of the state-owned Guyana Water Inc. In late 2015, he was hired by that entity. A few weeks before his company had received a fuel import licence, which allows for the importation, storage and wholesaling of fuel. It is not a licence that is granted easily. It requires stringent requirements including environmental permits and the facilities and safety equipment.
It was not until last year, that Atlantic Fuels commissioned a gas station at Bartica, Region Seven. Before that, there is little evidence that Atlantic Fuels met the requirements.
According to Customs documents, Atlantic Fuels on two occasions appeared to have submitted invoices using lower acquisition prices.
On the market at Morawhanna, Region One, a free trade area bordering with Venezuela, diesel was selling around US$0.50 per litre, a tad cheaper than Trinidad and other places.
However, according to Customs documents, Atlantic Fuels presented GRA with a Commercial Invoice dated September 25, 2018, which used a CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) price of US$0.25, half of the normal price.

The Commercial Invoice that was tendered to GRA with the US$0.25 cost per litre.

The amount of fuel was about 270,000 litres (71,326 US gallons).
Atlantic Fuels declared that the cost was US$67,500.00, which caused GRA to collect only $14M in taxes. The correct taxes should have been double that amount – almost $28M.
In another shipment in September/October last year by the same company, a similar under-invoicing appeared to have been done on diesel brought on a fuel ship, named “Century”, from Curacao.
The shipment of 639,000 litres (170,000 US gallons) was supposed to cost US$379,100.
However, Atlantic Fuels’ other director, Lear Goring, filed documents which pegged the cost at US$159,750. The state reportedly lost $32M in taxes because of that.
In Customs’ terms, the deliberate declaration of prices below what was actually the value or what was paid, is known as under-invoicing. GRA uses the cost to assess taxes.
Atlantic Fuels was controversially granted a licence in late 2015, months after the Coalition Government took office.
Van West-Charles, the son-in-law of former President, Forbes Burnham, received the licence in just over a month from the Guyana Energy Agency.
Fuel trade is a highly lucrative business, with profits even more than the drug trade.
In fact, it is one of the biggest earners for government, in terms of the taxes that it rakes in.
However, bribery and collusion, even involving GEA staffers, have been proving a problem.
There have been complaints that while GRA has been squeezing small taxpayers, it seems to be not moving fast enough to tackle the tax evaders involved in the fuel trade.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News