By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterTHE GOVERNMENT is currently reviewing its tax administration, says Vinnette Keanes, the commissioner of the Taxpayer Audit and Assessment Department (TAAD) in the Ministry of Finance. Speaking during Tuesday's sitting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mrs. Keanes made specific mention of the regulations on penalties for the non-payment of General Consumption Tax (GCT).
"We are going to evaluate whether we could set up a different interest regime for persons who make genuine mistakes," she said.
PENALTIES
Mrs. Keanes was responding to the assertion by PAC member Delroy Chuck that the high level of penalties serve to make taxpayers "bitter." It was revealed earlier this year that that taxes of $8.26 billion as well as related interest, penalties and surcharges of a whopping $19.4 billion, were owed by 21,763 taxpayers. This, for the 2001/2002 fiscal year.
The interest payment on outstanding GCT stands at 30 per cent per annum (compounded per month) in addition to penalties and surcharges.
Explaining the methodology behind any possible change to the regulations governing tax penalty assessment, Mrs. Keanes said: "If you look and evaluate the facts in the case, and recognise that it was not wilful intent why they didn't pay, then there is a lesser charge. But right now it's just one charge for everybody."
Despite her acceptance of the concerns raised by the high penalty rate, the TAAD commissioner condemned an unofficial business practice of persons withholding GCT which, she said, led to the necessity for severe fines.
"GCT is money that does not belong to the company. It (the law) is intended to be punitive to force persons not to keep it," Mrs. Keanes said. She claimed that there is a culture in which GCT is treated as "ready cash" for businesses. "In any circumstances where you are short of money, instead of going to the bank where you have to present collateral and all these things you simply use the GCT. I've been told this before my face by persons who owe," she said.
