PSC pushes for tax cuts, migrant-worker policies in Budget 2026 submissions

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) is pushing for a series of pro-business measures, including reduced taxes, expanded incentives, and streamlined migrant-worker policies, as part of its formal submissions for Budget 2026.
PSC Chairman Captain Gerald Gouveia Jr outlined the organisation’s key priorities during a press conference on Wednesday, emphasising that the proposals reflect consultations with private-sector bodies, regional chambers, and corporate members across the country.
Gouveia said the PSC’s Budget 2026 recommendations are currently being finalised.
“Regarding the budget: every year, the private sector is invited to propose our suggestions to the next year’s budget. 2026 budget submissions are being compiled as we speak to be submitted. And with that comes consultation from across the different private sector business support organisations and regional chambers, as well as our corporate members for their input so that we can prepare a comprehensive list that is backed by evidence as to what measures we would like to see included in Budget 2026… In general, it’ll be things like tax reductions in business operations. It’ll be incentives for business communities. It could be things like examining areas of promoting migrant workers in Guyana,” the PSC Chairman said.

Labour shortages driving migrant-worker push
The PSC Chairman pointed to Guyana’s unprecedented economic growth as the foundation for its recommendations. That rapid expansion, he said, has created widespread labour shortages, stressing that bringing in foreign workers is not a substitute for local employment but a complementary measure.
In fact, he hinted at the need for a central process to integrate migrant workers into the local workforce.
“There’s no secret that there is a labour issue in Guyana, so while the private sector is promoting heavily the upskilling and inclusion of Guyanese in the workforce, we cannot hide from the fact that we need to make migrant workers a part of our economy if we want to continue the pace of growth in Guyana… So we see it across the board, from agriculture to construction to tourism, oil and gas, mining, forestry, service, ICT, healthcare. It really goes across the board – the sugar industry under the agriculture industry. What we have found is that we need help in terms of the manpower, the technology to continue to grow the economy at the pace that we’ve been growing it at. So in terms of the incentives that we’re asking for, it’s going to be looking at the process of bringing in migrant workers, streamlining that process from a legislative perspective, as well as from a financial perspective, the financial economic implications of foreign work in Guyana,” Gouveia Jr explained.
When questioned about better wages for local workers, Gouveia said the private-sector wage environment is already rising well above the legal minimum, but PSC is also pressing for the modernisation of employee-benefit taxation.
“So I think the market is doing its job in terms of regulating the cost of labour and raising the minimum wage in accordance with the market movement. Incentives – a lot of it is going to come back to our recommendations in terms of looking at income tax thresholds, looking at everything from corporation tax to incentives, allowances for employees, how we can better transfer their take-home salaries to them. So a lot of our recommendations is asking the Government to re-look at a lot of the employee benefit packages that we offer and then offering some mechanisms for that to become an opportunity for tax deductions or incentives for companies to offer higher benefits for their employees,” he added.