Fiji loses over $150m annually due to fraudulent practices by some businesses in the country.
Some supermarkets were into “creative accounting” by having additional cash registers and allegedly falsifying sales data, which were not in the company’s books of records.
Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FRCA) has stated it will treat any falsified VAT return with all seriousness and offenders will have to face the full brunt of the law including imprisonment.
Attorney-General and Minister for Finance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, in his 2016 National Budget address, said there was a need to do a better job of collections as there was a significant leakage in Fiji’s tax system.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said much income went unreported through the informal economy or through simple tax evasion because of the lack of a credible system to encourage or compel tax compliance.
“We will invest $5million in technology for the Ministry of Finance and FRCA to ensure better tax monitoring and compliance, including a system to link FRCA to cash registers so that retail and wholesale transactions will automatically and in real time be reported. It is only fair.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the Government was simply not collecting all the revenue it should be collecting.
