Guyana Revenue Authority to seek out tax evaders among professionals

The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced a tougher stance on tax evaders for 2012, especially among the grossest offenders – prominent professionals in higher income brackets, including doctors and lawyers.

Professionals, such as "accountants, lawyers, doctors, architects, civil engineers, dentists, land surveyors, pharmacists," are required to pay practicing and service fees to the government by February 28 every year.

However, "less than 15 percent of all categories of professionals have not complied with this requirement," says GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur. "What we have found among the delinquent ones are there are very prominent doctors and lawyers...very soon we will be publicizing those who are not honoring their obligations."

Only 530 individuals have been indentified among this group for failing to pay taxes. But Commissioner Sattaur argues that pursuing these individuals would be essential to the country's financial and bureaucratic stability.

"We [GRA] will be pursuing more vigorously, the compliance of this category of tax payers because they are the ones who are evading the revenues without much redress," says Sattaur. "It seems as if they operate with impunity...millions of dollars are evaded in taxes because of the non-compliance of these categories of tax payers."