Ram and McRae launching 300+ page VAT handbook

-contains updated Act, regulations

Ram & McRae, Chartered Accountants, is today launching the 2nd Edition of its Value-Added Tax and Excise Tax Handbook at the Georgetown Club, Camp Street at 5 PM.

A release from the company said that the Handbook is a 300+ page publication containing twelve chapters of explanation and elucidation of the law and easy to understand examples and illustrations of their application.

The Handbook also contains the up-to-date VAT Act and Excise Tax Act, along with the VAT Regulations and the Schedules of Zero-rated and Exempt Supplies. This edition includes a Glossary of Terms and an index of Abbreviations and References used.

The Acts are also annotated and include crossreferences to the text of the Chapters, designed to make them understandable.

The release said that illustrations include tables showing the difference between zero-rated, standard-rated and exempt supplies; the Registration Process; a specimen of the VAT Application for Registration form; Preregistration Credit; calculating VAT where the registered business engages in both taxable and exempt supplies; Mixed Supplies; VAT-inclusive pricing; Tax Invoice; setting up and maintaining the VAT account; the VAT Return; specimen Notice of Appeal; the Objections and Appeals Process; the Application for Refund form; and Table of Civil and Criminal Offences and Penalties.

The text is also backed up by a number of legal authorities including some of the high-profile tax cases in Guyana such as Bata Shoe Company vs. CIR, Argosy Company (In Liquidation) vs. CIR, Demerara Railways Company vs. Georgetown Town Council and Ramlakhan vs. IRC. Other Guyanese cases are Chue and Hyman vs. AG, and Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine vs. Commissioner of Police, a case dealing with the fundamental right of travel. The Handbook also includes cases from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica with the majority of the VAT cases coming from the VAT Tribunals of the UK.

In its overview of the handbook, Ram and McRae said the document will “attempt to clarify what the VAT system is about and how it works. It will address too…the scope and power of the Minister of Finance, the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Commissioner General for the administration of the Act; the obligations of the taxpayer; offences and penalties, and the different recourses available to an aggrieved taxpayer”.

It added that its objective in presenting the handbook is to be a “neutral and independent party rather than as a professional firm advising a client. The cases we have cited have value for the professional, the administrator as well as the taxpayer and businessperson who may err for want of knowledge of the law and its application”.

The handbook said that VAT is being substantially reformed this year as a result of the budget announcements with a reversal of the zero rate on basic food items and other goods and services which were introduced on social grounds.

“It is not without some interest that the situation is almost where it was when VAT was first introduced – very little by way of zerorated items”, the handbook noted.

The pre-launch price for the Handbook is $25,000 and thereafter the price will be $30,000 per copy, the release said.