Oil companies and taxes

Nov 03, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Taxation is a touchy issue in Guyana for the PPP/C Government. When the discussion is about taxing the oil companies operating here, leaders in this government vanish.

Guyanese pay taxes and they want ExxonMobil to pay its fair share of taxes. The fly in the ointment is that the PPP/C Government is on the side of ExxonMobil with this one, and against the Guyanese people. In America, the home of several oil giants, the sounds and sentiments are about the possible levying of taxes on windfall profits made by oil companies.

In Guyana, on the other hand, where there is no such native attachment to the oil companies, there is only silence and resistance on the government’s part when the challenge is made for ExxonMobil to pay its fair share of taxes due to the Guyanese treasury.

In America, Joe Biden and many other Americans are again talking about the necessity of applying windfall taxes on the excess profits of oil companies. In Irving, Texas, the CEO of ExxonMobil was one happy man last week as he celebrated blockbuster profits like never before in his company’s 152-year history. Guyana’s high-quality, low-cost oil contributed a goodly share to the US$19B plus that ExxonMobil could boast about to its investors, Wall Street analysts, and the world. The irony is that while the Americans (and others) contemplate taxes on excess profits (so-called windfall taxes), Guyana is not saying anything about any taxes at all.

It is no secret in Guyana, but the enraging reality is that ExxonMobil and partners are not paying one dime in taxes on its profits. In fact, ExxonMobil is so greedy and outrageous that it has even gone to court to push for one of its vendors to pay taxes at a lower rate. Meanwhile, when agitated citizens call for ExxonMobil to pay some taxes, its fair share, the company gets the PPP/C Government to go after those Guyanese daring to challenge its comforting and enriching nontax regime. As matters stand currently, there is this national horror show of Guyana’s own Attorney General on the side of ExxonMobil in a war against another Guyanese (KN’s Publisher, Glenn Lall) filing a court case on behalf of the Guyanese people. If this is not a disfigurement of government resources, a deformity of government intellect, and a diminishment of government wisdom, then nothing else could ever be.

We single out the Hon. Attorney General for special mention due to his leading role in this matter. It is our position that he has occasion to manifest how honorably bound, patriotically charged, and ethically driven he is, and take a stand for what he has to know in his heart is damaging to the interests of his poor country. Though this may clash with the cannons of his learnings, his overarching national philosophy must rise to the fore and take hold. This we believe he knows all too well as to its demands on him. He must have the courage to convey to his chiefs and his comrades that he cannot, in good conscience, be the legal agency in this case. If Joe Biden and other Americans can think of how to get some tax money justifiably out of ExxonMobil (and Chevron and Conoco Phillips), one of their own, Guyana should try its hardest to get something for itself. We have not even reached the stage of windfall taxes yet, and only put on the table at this time, the regular corporate taxes that any Guyanese company has to pay.

The nonpayment of taxes by ExxonMobil is not just an abomination, it is the rankest of rank injustices. Guyanese should be out in the streets to express their wrath at this thievery under contractual cover that hemorrhages our already thin national coffers. To think that Guyana’s new massa, ExxonMobil’s Alistair Routledge, could have the audacity and indecency to talk about the 2016 contract as the “best ever contract” for this country is the height of arrogance and insult. All Guyanese should be infuriated, just as how legions of Americans are. We are feeling the squeeze, so must ExxonMobil. The PPP/C Government must work tirelessly to get the company to pay its share of taxes.

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