THE Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority received 44 complaints regarding unethical practices by businesses and 31 cases are still being investigated.
FRCA acting CEO Visvanath Das said four prominent supermarkets, one bookshop, a restaurant and a shipping company were issued with value added tax infringement notices by FRCA.
The supermarkets, bookshop and shipping company were also fined $50,000 while the restaurant was fined $10,000.
FRCA, Consumer Council of Fiji and Fiji Commerce Commission have started investigations against the businesses that had failed to reduce prices following the VAT rate reduction from 15 per cent to 9 per cent.
“To date, we have received 44 such complaints regarding unethical practices by businesses, of which 12 have been fined while 31 cases are still being investigated,” he said.
Of the 12 businesses issued with infringement notices and had time to pay within the 21 days of the notice, four had paid the fines as they did not want the court proceedings.
He said the price surveillance committee comprising officers from FRCA, Fiji Commerce Commission and the Consumer Council of Fiji was carrying out surveillance work and gathering information and complaints on deceitful retailers who had not revised their prices following reduction in VAT.
Mr Das said the list also included retailers who had decreased prices, however, it was not proportionate to the 6 per cent decrease.
He said it was unfortunate to see some prominent and reputable businesses were involved in non-compliant behaviour and were not passing the 6 per cent reduction in VAT to consumers.
In light of this, Mr Das urged businesses to comply with tax laws and regulations.
He also encouraged businesses and consumers to come forward if they came across transactions where VAT reduction had not been passed on to the consumers.
He said consumers could report this to the consumer watchdog, Fiji Commerce Commission or FRCA.
