FIJI shadow economy is estimated to be between $800million to $1 billion a year, representing lost revenue through illegal acts of tax evasion and other tax crimes.
Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) chief executive officer Udit Singh said while they were closing in on some cases of financial misconducts such as tax evasion, fraud and money laundering, added collaboration between key agencies via the newly formalised Tax Crimes Taskforce would make a dent in that black economy.
“Fiji as an economy has been growing, there’s been a groundswell in terms of activity, and so the volume of transactions in the black economy is also a direct result of the growth in the economy,” Mr Singh said in an
interview.
“So the transparency initiatives that are being created by a number of the electronic market and a number of other providers will really help us ensure that people start to be compliant.”
Mr Singh said the FRCS now had a governance body of the heads of agencies – the Tax Crimes Taskforce, that would meet regularly to share intelligence and refer to each other where there were aspects of
any financial misconduct or tax crime.
“What we’re trying to do now is ensure that our initiatives are effectively collaborative.
“And that when we get cases, that we are bringing it to some of these councils, and that we are jointly looking at avenues to take these cases into court or intro investigation,” he said.
Mr Singh said most of the cases they were aware of involved local entities.
“However, some of them have foreign touchpoints.”
Early this month, the FRCS signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with its eight key partner agencies of the Tax Crimes Taskforce, formalising inter-agency collaboration to combat tax crime and financial misconduct in the country.
It is also understood that some significant cases, particularly in WET fraud, have been forwarded to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC).
In addition to FRCS, the Taskforce comprises the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Immigration, Land Transport Authority (LTA), FICAC, Fiji Police Force, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), and Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FFIU).
