Individuals and businesses will not need a Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) for remittances valued at less than $20,000 as the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) announced last week it has raised the tax clearance limit from the previous $10,000.

FRCS acting chief executive officer, Malakai Naiyaga said the benefit of this would be the significant reduction in the number of small transactions requiring TCC, therefore improve ease of doing business.

A TCC, according to FCRS’ user manual on Standard Tax Clearance, is normally required before financial institutions can remit funds overseas.

“Individuals may need a clearance certificate for migration or other purposes, while non-individuals may remit funds in the normal course of their business,” it said.

“We wish to inform our customers that we will continue to work closely with other agencies in the review of our operational policies and practices to bring in more efficiency and improvements in our service delivery as per our strategic objective,” Mr. Naiyaga said.

Customers can now apply online to FRCS for a tax clearance certificate.

Payments for the following are exempt from tax clearance:

1. Education funds paid to educational institutions for student’s fees.

2. Payments made for medical bills.

3. Import payments for goods already landed and cleared by FRCS (inclusive of freight and insurance for shipment); prepayment of term bills for goods already landed and cleared by FRCS; party payments for goods landed and cleared by FRCS.

4. Merchanted goods – payments of goods which are facilitated via Fiji for other Pacific island countries.

5. Payments for imports of fuel/oil and lubricants.