The Guyana government collected a total of $176.1 billion in internal revenue last year, representing an increase of 32.1% from the previous year.

The announcement was made by Senior Minister in the Office the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, during the presentation of the 2023 National Budget.

The Finance Minister said the expansion in revenue collection is attributed largely to higher collections of private sector corporation taxes, personal income tax, and withholding taxes which grew by $16.9 billion, $12 billion, and $10.4 billion, respectively.

Additionally, the Minister said growth in withholding tax collections is mainly attributed to higher collections from the oil and gas sector.

Despite the increase in tax collection, the collection of VAT and excise taxes took a dip.

“Mr. Speaker, collections of value-added tax (VAT) and excise tax contracted by $9.6 billion, in 2022, amounting to $85.2 billion at the end of the year. This is attributed to the reduction of the excise tax rate applied to petroleum products, which resulted in a total loss of $17.2 billion on the collection of excise tax on petroleum products,” the Finance Minister told the house.

On the other hand , collections from VAT (net of refunds) expanded by $8.5 billion when compared with 2021, totaling $56.8 billion at the end of 2022, on account of higher collections related to both domestically supplied goods and the importation of goods and services, the Minister said.

He further explained that Customs and trade tax collections grew $4 billion above its 2021 level to reach $31.1 billion in 2022, largely attributed to higher collections of import duties of $3.4 billion.

In contrast, non-tax revenues totaled $9.8 billion at the end of 2022, $1.8 billion below the 2021 collections, driven by lower collections of rents and royalties.

Further, the Central Government recorded a deficit of $155.5 billion, or 11.8% of GDP, at the end of 2022, on account of a 53.1 percent inGcrease in overall expenditure.

Total expenditure totaled $593.1 billion at the end of the year, and it’s growth outweighed the $162.4 billion increase in total revenue, the Finance Minister noted.

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