EC Supreme Court Rejects Uncomer’s Appeal

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has rejected an appeal submitted by Unicomer (St Vincent) Ltd, the owner of ‘Courts’ St Vincent.
The judgment which was delivered on April 17 means that the company would have to pay the amount owed to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), unless they file an appeal at the Privy Council.
The issue arose after an audit of the company was conducted for the period 2007 to 2011 and a subsequent audit done in 2015 and when the Comptroller of the Inland Revenue Department assessed that the company owed a sum amounting to EC$12.66 million inclusive of interest and penalties.
Unicomer appealed the assessment before the Appeal Commissioners (AC), and a decision rendered on November 29, 2018 where the AC ruled that the sums collected by the company were disallowed and that they were withholding taxes.
And on December 4, 2018 the Comptroller of the Inland Revenue issued a letter demanding the payment of EC$13,556,007.30 to be made on or before December 14, 2018, following which on December 20, 2018 the IRD wrote to several financial institutions demanding the amount be paid.
Unicomer responded on December 21, 2018 that the letters sent by the IRD were unlawful and on December 28, 2018, the company filed an Appeal in the High Court where the court ruled again in favour of the IRD and the AC.
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves spoke on the judgment while speaking on radio on April 21 saying that he had a copy of the 24-page judgment which had indicated that the appeal judges at the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court were in agreement to dismiss the appeal submitted by Unicomer and affirm the judgment for the comptroller of the Inland Revenue Department in the sum of EC$12.66 million.
“This sum is closer to EC$20 million or thereabouts,” Gonsalves said.
According to him, it was important that the tax collection agencies remain vigilant.
“We have to be in the collection of our taxes from all taxpayers, but particularly from the 20 percent of the companies which [are] paying about 80 percent of the company taxes,” he said.
Gonsalves added that a significant amount of taxes come by way of Value Added Tax (VAT) collected at the ports and domestic with the government expected to collect about EC$270 million this year.
“But this is an important story, it hasn’t appeared yet…nobody has put it out, but I want to put it out,” he said.
“Of course, Unicomer has the right to appeal to the Privy Council. I don’t know whether they are going to do that.
They may well do because it is a significant amount of money. But I don’t know,” the prime minister continued.