The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service has raised the red flag on some small businesses and restaurants that do not offer receipts to their customers.

Beauty salons have also come under the radar as another business that often doesn’t issue receipts.

FRCS Chief Executive Visvanath Das says the onus is also on customers to demand receipts when they purchase anything.

“We have had a few cases where we have gone to the extent of prosecuting and they have been prosecuted and fined. There has been one restaurant that weren’t issuing receipt and was just the order that was issued and we investigated and we recovered some substantial amount of tax discrepancies from them.”

Consumer Council Chief Executive Seema Shandil has also received similar complaints with beauty salons topping the list.

“That is one of the area where we receive a lot of complaints from because what happens is lady spend so much. They spend as much as $300 for their hairdo however they are not issued with receipts so if something goes wrong, they are not able to go and seek redress.”

The Council has also received hundreds of complaints of failure to issue receipts which add up to a substantial amount.

“In the past three years, we have received 280 complaints on non-issuance of receipts and collectively these complaints were valued at $55, 822.” 

For businesses, any sale above $10 requires a receipt.

Shandil explains that for transactions below $10, whether it be a restaurant, clothing, retail or a hardware store, customers still have the right to demand a receipt.