FIRCA says 40,000 to fill tax return forms for the first time

The Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority said that close to 40,000 of the 95,000 taxpayers that have registered will for the first time fill their tax return forms.
 
FIRCA chief executive officer, Jitoko Tikolevu said that these figures show the high number of people that either did not know about paying their taxes or they did it deliberately.
 
He said that the registration process highlighted those that were supposed to be paying tax but had not been registered over the years.
 
Acknowledging the timely response by people who have registered for their Tax Identification Number (TIN), Tikolevu said that it was also the duty of the employer to ask employees for their TIN numbers.
 
Meanwhile, registration numbers have dropped compared to previous few months.
   
Tikolevu said that many people have registered and it is good to note that they are actually making the initiative to register.
 
He said it was difficult to put into monetary terms how much revenue Government had not been able to collect from the 40,000 that had not been paying taxes until recently.
 

Story by: Sneh Chaudhry