The shadow economy, also known as the black economy, is estimated to be nearly a billion dollars annually, representing a significant loss in tax revenue that fails to reach government coffers.
The shadow economy refers to all economic activities that are not reported to the government and therefore not taxed or monitored by official institutions.
Fiji Revenue and Customs Service CEO, Udit Singh highlighted this to fijivillage News, noting that a significant amount of money is circulating within the cash economy.
Singh says they are working hard with their partners, businesses, government and other agencies, to bring a lot of these businesses into the net.
He says this is going to take a little while as the economy needs to be digitised for transparency purposes.
The CEO further says they need the details of the digital wallet accounts, QR codes to get these transactions into the digital economy.
When asked what's the impact on the economic growth, Singh says there is a huge effect on economic growth, because this money creates a multiplier effect, however, the tax effect is unknown.
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