The drafted Income Tax Bill by the Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FRCA) has highlighted simplicity and plain language.

FRCA chief executive officer Jitoko Tikolevu along with his staff presented their submission to the Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights yesterday.

Mr Tikolevu said one of the most visible changes from the current legislation to the Income Tax Bill was the size.

“The reduction of size also the language in the bill is very simple and plain.

“There is no use of Latin language that we can argue over for misinterpretation. It is very simple.”

He added the Income Tax Bill also has made navigation simple by including a glossary at the back.

Self assessment

The Income Tax Bill has chosen the approach of simplicity to encourage the use of self assessment.

Mr Tikolevu said: “Why we need to use simple language is because the approach going forward is self assessment.

“So people can read the law themselves and they can themselves assess their own tax and pay the right taxes.

“The whole idea is that people understand it well and that they can comply with the law,” he added.

Process

Since 2010 FRCA are been working continuously to compile the Income Tax Bill.

“The current act was drafted in 1974. It is 41 years old and we started to work towards redrafting it in 2010 and this is our 14th draft,” he said.

“We conducted many consultations with the communities and the business communities and also conducted one on one interviews with business to see what was needed in this draft.”