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Guyana, ExxonMobil and taxes

Jun 13, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It was American Founding Father and statesman, who gave us the memorable, “In this world nothing can said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In view of what is happening in Guyana today, taxes are causing the death of us, and by a thousand cuts. Successive Governments of Guyana, and American oil giant, ExxonMobil, are responsible for this terrible tax state, and we denounce them all for what this unconscionable tax regime is doing to Guyanese.
The previous APNU+AFC Coalition Government gave away to Exxon Guyana’s whole tax book. It left us with nothing to get from Exxon and its partners, not a single tax dollar that we can collect from the company. We can linger and lament over that, it is what we will be doing forever, if we don’t hold leaders accountable. The PPP/C Government took office, with all these promises from the lips of its powerful leaders, about what they were going to do to make things right for the expectant citizens of this poor, limping society. Then they stopped dead, with nothing occurring past the promises made so earnestly, the many hopes they stirred in Guyanese.
Taxes is one of the sweet, rich low hanging fruits that must be plucked by leaders ruling today. Yet, on each occasion that the opportunity arose, they skulked away like fearful curs, so feeble they were in confronting Exxon to get some relief for Guyanese. They had to target the billions in taxes that Exxon does not pay, but which every Guyanese does.
Guyanese could use the ease from paying less income taxes, well below that almost one third of the low wages and salaries that they work for. In a country like this, where outsiders are boasting in rushing showers of words about their rich prospects in Guyana, citizens should not be paying any taxes, but they do. They do when they buy most things, and it is called VAT, which represents another burden on all Guyanese, especially the poor ones. Our VAT should be much less, or not at all, but that is not in the cards, because Exxon has already gobbled up all the taxes that could have been freed up to make the lives of citizens here more manageable. It is the same story, sell a house or a car, and there is the likelihood that some may have to sell another asset to pay off the taxes that are heaped on them. This is what infuriates deep down, given the injustice, the imbalance of what is going on here, so normal here, with ExxonMobil ruling our rulers.
Exxon pays no taxes, but Guyanese must. Exxon’s and Hess’s and CNOOC’s investors are further enriched from Guyana’s oil riches, while the whole host of Guyanese are impoverished. That is, except for the cronies of the leaders in the PPP/C Government, their friends and families, who feast on this oil bonanza, while ordinary Guyanese live with daily famine. This is not anymore of what is even one-sided or lopsided, but it is more than that, in the graveside that Guyanese find themselves locked into, with this tax regime, through which Exxon and company plunder and pillage this land.
When today’s PPP/C Government had moments to put the brakes on Exxon’s runaway oil train, and make the company’s leaders come to their senses, the government failed. Payara is the first poor example of pathetic leadership, the Yellowtail Project the second, and the renewal of the permit for Liza 1, the most recent. In sum, these represent not just the cowardliness of PPP/C Government leaders before the ruthlessness of Exxon. It also incorporates the compromise state in which they exist, and from which they lead this society. They are not alone because there is a Coalition Opposition that can’t even find its feet, and which is still struggling to decide what it is all about.
Every time that we think of what Exxon is allowed to get away with in the taxes that it does not pay, we recoil. Since our leaders refuse to fight for us, then we will have to prepare to take the fight to Exxon. Exxon must pay its fair share of taxes on Guyana’s oil.

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