Income taxpayers owed both large and small refunds for 2006 to 2011 will soon begin receiving refunds, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) announced on Friday.
The tax agency said the more than 60,000 refunds to employees would be made from early December after the customary verification process has been conducted.
“(This) represents a major departure of what usually occurred with the payment of refunds which were only made for large amounts owed to tax payers,” the GRA said in a statement.
Those eligible, if owed, would have had to file their individual returns along with their respective employer(s) who would have submitted their employers’ Form 2s.
The GRA said the process is being facilitated by the Total Revenue Integrated Processing System (TRIPS).
With payments scheduled to begin early next month, the GRA urged taxpayers to to ensure that their addresses associated with their Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs) have been updated to ensure that they get their refunds in a timely manner. This can be done easily by bringing in a proof of address at our new Head Office located on Camp Street.
Commissioner General, Mr. Khurshid Sattaur, said that permission was given to prioritize and process the refunds due to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxpayers for the period, using a methodology which will see taxpayers being placed into three (3) categories based on the amount of the tax refund payable to them.
He said that in order to logically process the refunds, taxpayers have been placed in three (3) bands based on the value and number of refunds. As a result, taxpayers with refunds amounting to less than $500 will be given a tax credit, which will be used to offset any future liability, or outstanding debts for any tax. This measure will be applied, given the volume and value of the refunds for this category of taxpayers. Further, Mr. Sattaur noted that it would be impractical to either mail or ask taxpayers to come in to uplift these refunds, since the cost to GRA and the taxpayers would exceed the value of the amount.
Taxpayers with refunds between $500 and $1000 will be asked to visit the agency to uplift these monies. In this category, an estimated 5,000 taxpayers stand to benefit from the payout. The GRA will publish the names of approximately five hundred (500) eligible taxpayers weekly, and they will have one month to uplift their monies after their names have been published. Refunds not uplifted by this category of taxpayers will be given as a tax credit against their names as in the case of Category 1.
Category 3 will comprise taxpayers with refunds greater than $1000 and they will receive a cheque from the GRA. The processing of this transaction will entail the use of an automated cheque generating system that will result in a significant amount of cheques being prepared for dispatch to the taxpayers.