Many Guamanians filed taxes early because of refunds

by Sabrina Salas Matanane

Guam - It may be that time of the year when people make the mad dash to the Department of Revenue & Taxation, but according to the agency's director times have changed because less and less people are showing up to his agency on deadline day.

"People are here making payments filing their return on the due date," said agency director John Camacho. Although it's Deadline Day, he says there's something much different going on.  "We had roughly 43,000 that filed already."

That's 70% of those who typically file their returns filing early. The reason?

 "A lot of people filed early because of the refunds," Camacho said.

And just as quickly as they come in Rev & Tax is making every effort to get them out. Camacho who has been at the agency for a considerable amount of years says times have definitely changed from people waiting years to get a return to now mere weeks. "That is something that's very positive for the taxpayers of Guam. When the governor came in he wanted to take care of the refunds we did that last year we practically paid all the refunds that were filed last year by December this year again we continue again to look at that we' continue to pay out refunds hopefully taxpayers are you can see all of them are filing early right now there's confidence in the government system that we're paying refunds timely," he said.

As for those who have waited till the very last minute to file, you can always file for a six month extension. "Because there's a stiff penalty of 5% on what you owe and as high as 25% so that extensions would relieve you of that liability moving forward," he said.

But the real question most of you probably want to know the answer to is, when is the next batch of tax refunds going to be released? "We're looking at printing some checks Thursday we're looking at that we left off by paying people that file on February 4th were going to continue that this coming Thursday," Camacho said.

If you have not filed you can still do, Rev & Tax will have its drop box open until midnight tonight.