Taxes, what taxes

Oct 04, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – If to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), then far less should be expected to Guyana. When ExxonMobil Holdings Corporation could be so uncaring, so reckless, to file with the SEC that it paid US$1.1B in 2025, that highlights what this country has for a partner. If ExxonMobil can claim that payment (and it did), then there is no limit to what it could do to the Guyana Government and the people of Guyana. A driller for oil should be careful about the line that it walks: a claimant of what it did not do, one that takes a huge risk with an SEC filing with that US$1.1B tax hole.

ExxonMobil did not pay Guyana’s sole taxing authority, the GRA, any US$1.1B in 2025. ExxonMobil’s shifty and self-serving 2106 oil contract has a provision in Article 15.1 that exempts it from paying a series of taxes, with taxes on income from petroleum operations being the highlight. Once again, we at this publication ask these simplest of questions. What US$1.1B in taxes paid in 2025? Paid to which part of the GRA? When was that paid? When did money, over a billion in taxes paid, leave ExxonMobil’s treasury and reach into Guyana’s treasury? But the company has a receipt, a tax certificate, for taxes that it did not pay itself.