| GRA staff help businessmen fleece $150M in taxes – Customs sourceThe recent discovery of forged signatures on a number of Tax Exemption letters at the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) may have uncovered more than $100M in taxes being evaded, officials say.Earlier this month, GRA announced that it was investigating two officers after a number of letters granting duty free concessions were found to be forged. The concessions were for All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and other heavy duty vehicles used in the mining industry.A major scam involving duty free letters for ATVs may have caused GRA to lose millions of dollars in taxes and duties.The tax agency said that the fake signatures were affixed to Remission of Duty Letters (commonly referred to as CG or Tax Exemption letters) used for issuing duty-free concessions for the ATVs and the mining equipment. Under normal circumstances these vehicles would have attracted concessions for eligible applicants.GRA, at the time, also said that it would appear to be more a case of officers being paid in order to avoid complying with the necessary documentary requirements, commonly referred to as ‘expedition’ inducement.However, insiders are insisting that the letters and signatures were not forged, that they are the real things but were granted illegally to importers, mostly city businesses.The ATVs (four wheel motorbikes) are being sold in some cases for as much as $3M. They are used mainly in the mining and agricultural areas in the hinterlands. Farmers and miners are the ones that would have to apply for the tax waivers.They would have to submit approval documents from the relevant agencies and ministries,Angelo Henriquez Chile Jersey, including the Ministries of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, among others, to GRA where they will be checked before approval is granted.According to GRA sources, in all likelihood the supporting documents were not submitted and as a result GRA system managed to pick up the scam.It is believed that GRA may have lost as much as $150M in duties and other taxes.Since the investigation started,UCF Knights Jerseys, one of the officers implicated has been transferred.Earlier, this month,Joe Blanton Jersey, GRA said the detection was made as part of the routine system of checks and balances in place to prevent such occurrences.The officers were found culpable but denied the allegations. But according to GRA, irrefutable evidence from the records of the Division which facilitates tax exemptions, has implicated them.GRA’s boss, Khurshid Sattaur said that while the agency would never be able to avoid the occurrences, “we can however detect them, weed out the corrupt elements and take them to task swiftly.“Fortunately all of these irregular situations leave an audit trail that not only identifies the officers involved, but more importantly, the taxpayer who would have paid the inducement to corrupt the system.”Such acts, GRA pointed out,Karl Mecklenburg Denver Broncos Throwback Jersey, are typical of the practices engaged by some elements of the private sector,Adidas Mattias Ekholm Jersey, who seek to evade the payment of their fair share of taxes.It noted that this leads to the GRA being accused of being corrupt or harbouring corruption. It is also too early to precisely determine the level of revenues involved, if any.When all the evidence has been gathered, the matter will be placed in the hands of the Guyana Police Force for full investigation, GRA said.“I hope and would expect that the guilty parties, both the officers and the businessmen, are charged and placed before the court,Cheap NFL Jerseys Online,” Sattaur had said in the statement. |
