Paying the right amount of tax is a civic duty - Dixon

Paying the right amount of tax is a civic duty and should not be something that we should be worried about, but something that we should get right and we want to make sure that as your business grows, you are paying an accurate and fair amount of tax.

This was highlighted by Fiji Revenue Customs and Services CEO Mark Dixon during the FRCS Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Day celebrations at the FRCS building yesterday.

Dixon says there is no doubt that whilst the big businesses and big taxpayers are important, the real growth of diversification is going to come from all the MSMEs.

He says MSME is an essential component of Fiji’s economic landscape and it has been witnessed that the majority of the MSMEs want to be tax compliant, however, sometimes a lack of awareness of tax processes can hinder that desire of them wanting to be tax compliant.

Dixon says when we look at the Fijian economy and the budget that the coalition government just previously delivered, we can see significant growth in investment in terms of expenditure on health, education and infrastructure but ultimately all of these do need funding in terms of tax revenues so that we can continue to transform and change Fiji for the better for everyone.

He adds it is not just about compliance, but it is about making sure that people are getting access to all the right refunds and also know what other expenses they can claim and also to know what taxing incentives and customs concessions that are available to the people.

Dixon says in April this year, they launched a compliance improvement strategy and two big documents were published one of which is the new strategic plan on vision for FRCS and the second one was the compliant improvement strategy.

He says a key part of that strategy is to enhance voluntary compliance in every business and in order to do that, there is a need for education and awareness to be successful.

Dixon says through FRCS-MSME program training, they aim to empower the FRCS-MSME community members to enhance tax knowledge and their goal is to enable all MSMEs to be fully self-sufficient and independent going forward.

He says it is important to recognise that while these MSMEs might be running their small businesses on a small scale now, they hold immense potential as future taxpayers.

Meanwhile, 100 participants of the FRCS-MSME program were awarded certificates for their participation in the training during the celebration yesterday.