No finance minister or government can continue to run without exploring options of collecting a reasonable amount of revenue.
Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad said in an interview on The Lens@177 in Suva this week, the $3billion revenue projection in the national budget was realistic because the Government was not about “political gimmicks”.
“We’re not about populist policies,” he said.
“We have done some things which may sound boring, not fancy, but something that will be in the long-term interests of the people. So, revenue collection is important.
“Just like families, if you keep borrowing and if you don’t have an income source, you can borrow up to a certain point, but someday, you’ll have to pay for it. And similarly, a country runs like that.
“And we’re not overtaxing the economy.”
Prof Prasad said there were a lot of incentives for investors and tax forgiveness in terms of good incentives.
“Our calculation shows that almost a billion dollars worth of tax incentives are provided to different sectors of the economy.”
This, he said, included the tourism sector, agriculture or supporting indigenous business.
Prof Prasad said they had provided additional measures in the budget to support and promote indigenous business in the country.
“It’s a very balanced, well thought out logical budget in the context of what we have in the economy at the moment.”
