The tax office has given 2972 businesses until the end of next month to lodge outstanding Value Added Tax (VAT) returns or face either penalties or prosecution.
In a statement yesterday, the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) said it had activated the second phase of its VAT Compliance Campaign out of concern over the non-compliance.
“In this phase, FRCS will be publishing the Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs) of businesses engaged in Business to Business (B2B) transactions who have failed to file their VAT returns,” FRCS stated.
TINs of the 2972 businesses — who were found to have issued VAT Inclusive Price (VIP) invoices to other VAT-registered businesses but had not fulfilled their obligation to file VAT returns — are already on the FRCS website.
FRCS’ VAT Compliance Campaign is aimed at strengthening tax compliance to optimise VAT revenue.
“FRCS is concurrently addressing the second stream of non-compliance, which pertains to businesses that remain active and engaged in commercial transactions but have pending VAT returns,” FRCS stated.
“The listing of the businesses would be included in Batch two in the coming months.
“The 2972 taxpayers are required to lodge all their outstanding VAT returns by 29th February 2024.
“Should there be a failure on their part to update their VAT returns by the due date, the Service (FRCS) will raise default assessment, may impose penalties, or consider prosecution as prescribed within Fijian tax laws.”
