How the government fuels inequity one duty-free at a time

Dec 14, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

 Kaieteur News- If the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) government had a motto since 2020, it would be this: “If the APNU+AFC built it, we’ll bulldoze it.” It’s governance by oppositional spite.

The latest example of this reverse – Midas touch? The restoration of the PPPC’s remigrant tax concession scheme—a program so thoroughly abused in the past that even the perpetrators of pyramid schemes must be taking notes.

Under the guise of “encouraging Guyanese to return home,” this grand old scheme gives returning Guyanese the ability to benefit, from importing luxury vehicles, with massive tax concessions. Yes, while the average man saves for years to buy a humble Toyota 212 and still ends up eating boiled plantains for a decade to make the monthly payments, our bourgeois remigrant friends are out here landing Range Rovers, Escalades, and—because excess knows no bounds—customized Teslas with ostrich leather seats.

And they are doing so through the complements of tax concessions under the remigration scheme. Some of these individuals are driving vehicles in Guyana that they could not afford to own in America or Canada. The scheme was thoroughly abused.

When the APNU+AFC government tried to fix the scheme, they admittedly overdid it, rendering the program so unappealing that even the most patriotic Guyanese overseas said, “Nah, keep it.” But in its infinite wisdom, the PPPC has now swung the pendulum back to its original position: wide open.

Let’s be honest here. This is not about bringing home the sons and daughters of the soil; this is about making it rain on the PPPC’s base of bourgeois supporters. It’s Robin Hood in reverse: take from the tax base and give to those who already have generators for their backup generators.

One case saw a remigrant waltz in with a luxury SUV that had $40 million in taxes waived. Forty million! To put that into context, $40 million could build a few streets in Sophia or buy 3,000 bicycles for schoolchildren in poor hinterland areas. Instead, it was forgone to ensure that someone’s driveway was graced with the dulcet hum of a high-end German engine. The inequity here is mind-boggling. While the working class scrapes together every dollar to afford an economy car that’s one pothole away from being a lawn ornament, the tax breaks rain down like blessings on those who need them the least.

And yet, the government persists. Why? Because the bourgeois class—that pampered constituency—happens to also be a key supporter of the PPPC. Never mind that the scheme flies in the face of logic, equity, and basic governance principles. What’s a few billion in lost tax revenue when your donor base can attend cocktail parties in style?

 

The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), for its part, has expressed “concerns” about the abuses of the scheme. But concerns are not laws and do not vest legal authority.

Here’s a radical idea for the PPPC: instead of this tit-for-tat reversal game with the APNU+AFC, why not abolish the remigrant concession entirely? Yes, shut it down. Kill it dead. Wrap it in red tape and bury it in Le Repentir Cemetery. And then—brace yourselves for this revolutionary thought—reduce the overall tax rates for everyone.

Imagine a world where the GRA doesn’t have to play customs detective, trying to ascertain whether someone’s “hard-earned” remittance dollars were really earned from honest labor or mysteriously appeared after a lucky streak at a casino. If taxes on vehicles were simply lower, period, there’d be no need for this convoluted scheme.

However, logic and politics rarely attend the same dinner party. The PPPC seems committed to its philosophy of undoing everything the APNU+AFC ever touched, even when the former government had a point. Instead of taking a sober look at the scheme and addressing its inherent inequities, the PPPC decided to fling open the floodgates to abuse, as though to prove a political point. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left holding the (now heavily taxed) bag.

This issue isn’t just about cars. This is about what it says about us as a society. The remigrant concession is symptomatic of a deeper malaise: our obsession with status symbols, our willingness to bend rules for the connected, and our inability to prioritize equity over excess.

Do we want to be a nation where the tax code is essentially a velvet rope at an exclusive nightclub, letting in only the privileged while the rest of us stand outside in the rain? Or do we want a system that’s fair, transparent, and designed to uplift everyone, not just those who can afford to sip imported champagne in their tax-free Mercedes?

The PPPC has a choice to make. It can continue down this petty path of overturning everything its predecessors did, even at the cost of good governance. Or it can rise above the pettiness, recognize that sometimes even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and do what’s best for the country. Abolish the remigrant tax concessions. Lower taxes across the board. And for once, govern with an eye toward equity, not just electoral expediency.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.)

(How the government fuels inequity one duty-free at a time)

 

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• APNU+AFC, bourgeois supporters, customized Teslas, People’s Progressive Party Civic, remigrant concession

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