The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service presented a submission to the Public Accounts Committee clarifying their 2016 audited reports.

FRCS CEO Visvanath Das says the institution has gone through a change in mindset to ensure they’re taking care of tax payers in order to effectively collect the appropriate taxes in addition to supporting the continued growth of the economy.

“We need to provide, facilitate and assist taxpayers because you know they take the risk, they grow the business, they grow the economy and with the legislative authority that the tax administration has, we then collect taxes.  Should the businesses or economy not grow, businesses don’t make profit, there’s no chargeable income for us to tax and therefore no tax revenues for us.”

In the 2016/2017 financial year, the FRCS collected more than $2.5 billion in revenue which consisted of income tax, vat, trade taxes and others.

In the following year, for the 2017/2018 financial year, more than $2.83 billion in revenue was collected.

In the last financial year, there was a minor decrease in revenue at a little more than $2.81 billion