Several significant cases of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, with some of those cases involving millions of dollars have been referred to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) for prosecution.
Tax Crimes Taskforce chairperson Nitin Gandhi revealed this yesterday at the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the taskforce between the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) and its eight key partner agencies yesterday.
While not much details could be disclosed given the sub judice and confidential nature of some of those cases, The Fiji Times has established that those cases were related to tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.
Mr Gandhi said at least among those cases, one involved a complex VAT fraud scheme, and the others concerned individual falsely acting as tax agents and submitting fraudulent tax returns.
“Since its inception, the taskforce has worked diligently to build relationships, share intelligence and strengthen enforcement mechanisms,” Mr Gandhi said.
“Where we feel that, and we have found the evidence of evasion – tax evasion is illegal, and where we have seen evidence of that, then we have referred it to FICAC to deal with it,” he told this newspaper.
“So I think it goes to a stage where we’re just not going to collect tax, but we will ensure that the person faces the prosecution if need be.”
FRCS chief executive officer Udit Singh confirmed that majority of the cases involved local entities.
“At this stage, most of them are local. However, some of them have foreign touchpoints,” Mr Singh told The Fiji Times.
Mr Singh said the Tax Crimes Taskforce initiative would not only help recover lost revenue but also serve as deterrent to future tax crimes.
“It reinforces public trust in our systems and sends a clear message that tax evasion and financial misconduct will not be tolerated.”
Mr Gandhi said the work of the Tax Crimes Taskforce also related to the investigation of unexplained wealth.
“In support of this, the 2025/2026 National Budget introduces the Assess Declaration policy, which mandates annual asset declarations for sole proprietors. This measure enhances financial transparency and provides a critical tool for identifying discrepancies between declared income and actual wealth,” he said.
The taskforce, he said was also empowered to rcommend legislative reforms where necessary.
