St. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday urged the Grenada government to discontinue a tax amnesty program that came into effect in January and will end on December 31st this year.
“We emphasize several times to the government that this one should be the last one,” said Huidan Lin, who headed an IMF mission to Grenada for the Article IV Consultations.
“It should be very deeply in people’s minds and those who are paying tax to the government that this should be the last one,” Lin told a news conference.
The Grenada government announced the tax amnesty during the 2023 budget presentation by then Finance Minister Dickon Mitchell. He said more than EC$777 million (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) are owed to the government due to outstanding taxes, late fees, and penalties and that the amnesty was intended to recoup the funds.
Lin told reporters that the government doesn’t only have to say that there will be no more amnesty but “engage in more vigorous enforcement in collecting its taxes.
“This will signal that we want to strengthen the enforcement, and there should be no concern,” she said.
To legalize the tax amnesty, the government tabled legislation amending the Tax Administration Bill with the new Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall, indicating that he would offer no mercy to persons who failed to take advantage of the amnesty.
“I want to send this warning, as Minister of Finance, if I ever had the opportunity after this amnesty is over and there are people out there who have not taken advantage of this thing, I will have no mercy to enforce the law,” he said.
“Amnesty sometimes is good, but it’s not the ultimate solution to the problems that we face in taxation; there are those of us who believe that we can always fix the bill, put it that way, and not pay the tax…To some of us who don’t understand that government can sell your property, those properties that probably say you will hold for your kids down the road because you are trying to avoid paying tax,” he added.
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