The Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority has come under scrutiny in relation to tax anomalies.
Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed – Khaiyum said there are anomalies in the taxation system which needs to be addressed.
These anomalies he said leads to some retailers, particularly grocery and supermarket outlets rigging the system.
” The anomaly also ladies and gentleman leaves the room open for leakages and I’m being very polite when I say that because by having this anomaly, we know and this is perhaps one area where FRCA needs to improve is capacity that there are people stealing from the system. there is fundamentally a culture of dishonesty ” said Sayed -Khaiyum
The Acting Prime Minister further raised concern that about $2.5 billion are unaccounted for in the economy.
” You also as a group need to be able to , if we are concerned about the future need to be able to identify people within your sector who are rigging the system. I’m saying this again and again because there is a huge amount of income leakage. There was a survey that was done that said one third of the value of our GDP is in the black economy. If you take today’s figure of $8 billion , one third of that is about $2.5 billion unaccounted for. Not coming through FRCA , not coming through mainstream, RBF, banks, its below us.” said Sayed-Khaiyum