Concern Over VAT Returns

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) is concerned about non-lodgment of Value Added Tax (VAT) returns by regis­tered entities.

The service announced the com­mencement of the second phase of the VAT Compliance Campaign, a critical initiative aimed at ensur­ing fiscal responsibility and com­pliance within the Fijian business community.

In this phase, FRCS will be pub­lishing the Taxpayer Identifica­tion Numbers (TINs) of businesses engaged in Business to Business (B2B) transactions who have failed to file their VAT returns.

The VAT Compliance Campaign is a comprehensive effort to en­hance tax compliance and optimize VAT revenue.

The campaign targets two distinct segments of non-compliant taxpay­ers: Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customers (B2C).

• Business to Business (B2B): FRCS, based on advanced data analysis techniques, hasidentified that there are a total of 2972 businesses (Suppliers) who have issued VATInclusive Price (VIP) invoices to other VAT-regis­tered businesses (Customers) but havenot fulfilled their ob­ligation to file VAT returns. This non-compliance behav­ior hasresulted in Customers claiming VAT input credits in their VAT returns, leading to adistortion in the VAT rev­enue stream.
• Business to Customers (B2C): FRCS is concurrently ad­dressing the second stream ofnon-compliance, which per­tains to businesses that re­main active and engaged in­commercial transactions but have pending VAT returns. The listing of the businesses­would be included in Batch 2 in the coming months.

FRCS encouraged taxpayers to take advantage of the resources available, including the customer service centre and online video tu­torials (see QR code).

In addition to these resources, FRCS also launched the VAT Guide on November 3, 2023.

Supported with a step-by-step guide and illustrations, the VAT Guide aims to simplify taxpayer understanding of their VAT obliga­tions. FRCS again reiterates that the 2972 taxpayers identified from Batch 1, must take immediate ac­tions necessary to achieve full VAT compliance status.

The 2972 taxpayers are required to lodge all their outstanding VAT returns by February 29, 2024.

Should there be a failure on their part to update their VAT returns by the due date, the Service will raise default assessment, may impose penalties, or consider prosecution as prescribed within Fijian tax laws.

Feedbacks: frederica.elbourne@fijisun.com.fj