Minister Ashni Singh’s presentation of Budget 2025 was 305 minutes long, about 38 minutes shorter than the 343 minutes taken to present Budget 2024. The $1.382 trillion budget, 21% larger than Budget 2024, was presented in the context of a “Secure, Prosperous and Sustainable Guyana”.
Importantly, Budget 2025 included no new taxes; and, further, reduced tax burdens for individuals and businesses.
The most anticipated budget ever in Guyana’s history did not disappoint the public. It is transformative; had something for everyone, from birth to the golden years: every family, every community — whether it is a Government or Opposition stronghold — in every Region, for every business and for every sector. Budget 2025 is a “people’s budget”, uniquely crafted to ensure that Guyana continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. The Government must be commended for their vision and clarity about the development path Guyana must pursue. It is ludicrous for people to expect the 43% GDP growth to be sustained. Still, the estimated growth of 10.9% is expected to be among the top three in the world for 2025.
The Opposition will have an insurmountable mountain to climb once the debate starts. Each year since Budget 2020 was presented by the Irfaan Ali-led PPP, the Opposition has been in disarray, unable to mount any credible challenge. The Opposition believes that drama and theatrics could replace substance. The Guyanese people, however, wanting to hear substance, already know the Opposition’s arguments. Whether it is the tax threshold, reduction of the tax rate, the other tax provisions, the old-age pension, and the Because We Care school grant, etc., the Opposition’s main argument will be the Government should give more. Not one new idea or cogent argument against anything in Budget 2025 would be presented.
Take the example of the income tax threshold. Given the PPP’s track record, every citizen could have predicted that the Government would raise the tax threshold. Indeed, Budget 2025 delivered by raising the threshold to $130,000 per month. This means that approximately another 25,000 Guyanese workers would be removed from the income tax roster. Threshold 2025 is 100% greater than threshold 2020. For people who also have children, their tax threshold has been increased. Guyanese citizens might not always agree with the amount proposed by Government, but they are always certain that the tax threshold would be increased by the PPP.
The Opposition and the usual suspects, that small group of anti-PPP commentators, have already deemed the $130,000 threshold a betrayal of the Guyanese people. Indeed, the PNC leader demands that it should be $400,000/month, promising that, should the PNC be returned to power, they would immediately increase the threshold to $400,000. Given their history, their own supporters do not believe them.
In 2015, they promised that, within the first 100 days, the threshold would be increased to $100,000/month. Between 2015 and 2020, the same people who for years spoke of doubling and tripling the threshold, and who promised that they will increase the threshold immediately to $100,000, increased it by only 30% in five years, a measly annual average increase of 6%, moving the threshold from $50,000/month to $65,000/ month. Between 2010 and 2014, in the almost four years, the PPP government increased the threshold by 43%, leaving it at $50,000 per month at the end of 2014, an annual average increase of about 11%. In the period from August 2020 to present, the PPP has increased the threshold by 100%, an annual average of 20%. Yet, the Opposition would argue in Parliament that the threshold should be increased between 2020 and now, not by 100%, but by almost 700%, or an annual average of 140%. It is dishonesty and sheer hypocrisy.
Actually, the threshold story is a little more. For those persons earning more than $400,000, the threshold is one-third of their salaries. Thus, for a person earning $450,000/month, the threshold is $150,000 and not $130,000.
Together with the increase in the threshold, the tax rates have been reduced from 28% to 25% (for earnings of up to $260,000 above the threshold) and from 40% to 35% (for earnings above the threshold + $260,000) and there are no new taxes, thus leading to more take-home pay.
This is in direct contrast to the PNC-led APNU/AFC budgets between 2015 and 2020, when, invariably, the Guyanese people were subjected to burdensome taxes, whether old or new, with unbearable increases in the cost-of-living. There were new taxes, for instance, through VAT for education, water and electricity, all of which were always treated in Guyana by the previous PPP governments as public good, things exempted from taxation. Even donkey carts had to pay increased licensing fees. Farmers were forced to pay taxes for the small-scale cash crops they either sold from their homes or at community markets. House-front vendors selling sugar cake and cane juice had to pay taxes. People had to pay VAT on data and the internet. Budget 2020, under the PPP, removed all those taxes the PNC-led APNU/AFC burdened the people with.
Guyana’s history is clear – PPP governments remove and reduce taxes; PNC-led governments increase and add new taxes.
In Budget 2025 debate, the Opposition would conveniently forget their promise to increase the tax threshold from $50,000 to $100,000 in their first 100 days in office, yet only managing to increase to $65,000/month after five years or almost 1,900 days between 2015-2020. They would conveniently forget their promise of no new taxes, yet increasing more than 200 taxes; that they promised public servants and sugar workers a 20% annual increase within their first 100 days, but froze sugar workers’ wages for five years and only delivered a 5% increase to public servants in 2015, while increasing their own salaries by between 50 and 100%; and their promise of fee university education within the first 100 days.
Budget 2025 debate around the tax threshold would most vividly expose the stark dishonesty and hypocrisy of the Opposition.