A common rhetoric that policy makers, politicians and critics like to peddle is that tax payers monies should not be used to subsidize private sector development. But who exactly makes up the "Tax Payers" being referred to? In Guyana the answer is simple, the majority of payments come from the private sector, both directly and indirectly.
Last year, corporations that pay Corporate Taxes contributed $20 Billion to the treasury. Directly and apart from corporate taxes, business owners pay income taxes, pay VAT when they make purchases for their businesses, pay duties on imports for their businesses, pay NIS and other statutory taxes, pay property taxes, pay environmental taxes, pay capital gains taxes, mining taxes among others.
Indirectly, no Vat taxes would even be collected if private sector activities ceases and private sector employment produces Income taxes collected from employees, which would not be at current levels if businesses fails to start up and no employment is available or created.
The other sources of taxes not involving the private sector would be public service income taxes, citizens property taxes, vehicle taxes and registration, among a few others. If you add up all the non private sector taxes, its total contribution to overall taxes would be negligible when compared to private sector related taxes.
I would conservatively estimate a minimum ratio of 80:20 percentage in favor of private sector related taxes.
So, why not allocate subsidies and other allocations to help business succeed so that overall tax payers dollars would increase? Get the point!
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