Fiji Revenue and Cus­toms Service (FRCS) Chief Executive Of­ficer, Visvanath Das is urg­ing businesses and stake­holders to be proactive and not wait for tax officers to make mistakes.

Mr Das made this state­ment while speaking dur­ing the Fiji Chamber of Commerce Industry (FCCI) organised Tax Update for Compliance “Q&A Session with CEO – FRCS” at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva yesterday.

Voluntary compliance from business

The discussion was cen­tred on tax and compliance clarifications.

While speaking to the 150 stakeholders from various business houses, Mr Das said FRCS wanted busi­nesses and tax payers to voluntarily comply with the tax systems put in place by the service.

“Our vision is to be in an environment that is proac­tively providing all the in­formation that is required to be able to comply to the VAT Moinitoring systems put in place,” Mr Das said.

“Keeping that in mind we will want to work with the businesses and also to be transparent about what tax officers plan to do under the compliance improve­ment strategy.”

VAT monitoring system

Mr Das said with the new ly adopted VAT monitoring system reports reveal how businesses are slowly pro­gressing.

“By implementing this in the system, we managed to detect frauds in some busi­ness,” Mr Das added.

“Eversince we have the gold card programme we have since expelled two tax payers.”

FCCI promote a positive environment for business

FCCI president Nur Bano Ali said the aim of this forum was to promote a positive environment for businesses and to defend the rights of entrepreneurs when it comes to tax up­date for compliance.

“This is the FCCI initia­tive to provide discussion platform for businesses with their respective stake­holders with regards to taxes,” Ms Ali said.

“What we are trying to do is basically have an open discussion amongst the businesses and FRCS or any other stakeholders.

“They will be able to un­derstand each other and businesses can therefore thrive.

“We brought in FRCS to talked about their role, and how the tax officers are dealing with the busi­nesses.

“The idea is not to create a facilitative environment and not an antagonistic one.”

Ms Ali added this was also an opportunityfor FRCS to talk about their future plans and their newly in­troduced taxing system.

“There has been a series of such discussions and it has been ongoing for num­ber of years,” she added.

“FRCS is also changing its laws and regulations and businesses will need to keep up with it.

“They are doing a whole new change in the struc­ture and taxing platform and legislative changes and businesses have to keep to up to date.”

Ms Ali said their role is to hear businesses and their concerns and we pass it on to relevant stakeholders such as FRCS.

“We play an important part on our businesses and we want to encourage an open partnership approach with discussions, the way we are having today with all stakeholders,” she said.

More 150 stakeholders at­tended the forum yesterday.

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