Guyana Revenue Agency Critical Of Commercial Banks In Country

GEORGETOWN, Guyana CMC – The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) says some commercial banks operating here are failing to provide customers with key documentation enabling them to benefit from a reduction in their mortgage interest rate.

GRA said it was dissatisfied by the level of cooperation shown by the various banking institutions as it relates to processing information necessary for facilitating the Mortgage Interest Relief (MIR) scheme.

The scheme provides for a 30 percent relief on the gross interest paid on first time mortgages amounting to G$30 million (One Guyana dollar = US$0.001 cents) or less.

However, in order to benefit from the initiative, applications must be submitted to GRA that include specific information from the lending institution at which the mortgage is being processed.

GRA said it held workshops with representatives from the various lending institutions last October and began its public education campaign which it stated, has been very aggressive in providing the information necessary for mortgagers to qualify for this relief.

“To date however, the biggest hurdle has been the receipt of applications without the accompanying bank information. This has forced the Revenue Authority to accept applications which cannot be processed since the relevant Letter by Lender Form (Form 2) and Schedule of Interest per Year are missing. Without this key piece of information applications will not be finalised for approval,” GRA said.

It said of the applications received to date, more than 207  were received with outstanding bank information.

“To date the GRA has received 1,487 applications of which 1,437 were received in 2013 and the additional 50 were submitted in the first two week of 2014. This statistic is quite troubling and the GRA will be having talks with the relevant stakeholders in an effort to fully understand the reason for the lack of information being provided to those mortgagers who have expressed their desire to benefit from this relief.”

GRA said that in an effort to facilitate the processing of the Mortgage Interest Relief, it has established a unit to address the needs of persons accessing the service and that it would continue to process applications as submitted.