Risk & Compliance
Large/International Compliance
The Section administers the tax laws as they apply to large and international taxpayers falling in the range of more than FJ$50 million, with contentious international issues, involving complex matters such as transfer pricing, tax avoidance, e-commerce and interpretation of tax treaties.
The team is also actioning cases referred from the Inter Agency Monitoring Task Force on Foreign Investment.
The team focuses on income tax implication on real property sales, sales of shares in land – rich companies and tax clearance applications in relation to these sales.
The major activities of the Special Project include the following:
- gathering information from developers, real estate agents, lawyers, tax agents, titles and companies office.
- undertake site visits to development sites.
- handle all tax clearances relating to property transactions and sale of shares.
- obtain documents directly from stamp duties.
- analyse transfer documents for potential taxable cases.
- enforce compliance in relation to tax clearances.
- follow up on secondary issues such as agents' commission not returned.
A public notice has alerted taxpayers and their representatives on the existence of the special project team.
Two Practice Statements numbers 24 & 25 have been developed in relation to the work of the special project team.
Fraud & Evasion Unit
The Fraud & Evasion Unit as the name suggests, deals with fraudulent cases including cases that involve tax evasion. The core function of the Fraud & Evasion Unit is to conduct audits on taxpayers suspected of being involved in fraudulent or illegal activities such as:
- persons suspected of being involved in scams.
- persons suspected of involvement in organised crime and money laundering
- VAT refund scams.
- information from the general public (dob-in).
Small/Medium Audit Compliance
This Section came into existence on 1 st January, 2005. And before that it was operated together with the Large/International as Audit Compliance. As a result of the recent increase in the tax base, taxpayers falling below the FJ$50 million turnover are being dealt with by the Small/Medium Section.
This section also includes Income Matching Unit (IMU) and the Source Deduction audit teams. The core activities of IMU involve matching of interest, rental and dividend income against taxpayer income returns.
The Source Deduction teams conduct PAYE site inspections and conducts audits on selected cases.
Project based audits
The idea was initiated to assist FIRCA in determining the level of compliance of different sectors of the economy.
Therefore, in order to establish links between the Policy Unit, Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Fiji , Project Based Audits were initiated. This led to the identification of three key industries.
Based on the information on “ Analysis of Revenue Contribution by GDP Sectors ” over a four year period (2003-2006), the focus was on high-risk areas in the Tourism, Transport and Construction industries.
Taxi project
The Taxi Project is a joint venture between the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority (FIRCA). The project commenced in October 2005 initially with a data survey to analyse the taxi industry as a whole whereby the terms of reference and memorandum of understanding was drawn up. The survey was finalised in February 2006 and the project proper was implemented in March 2006.
The main objective of the project was to ensure proper registration of all taxi proprietors for income tax purposes and bring about 100% compliance in terms of lodgement of income tax returns.
The control mechanism in place for taxi permit holders is that they need to lodge all their outstanding taxi returns for the years ending 31 st December, 2003, 2004, 2005 and annually thereafter by 31 st March each year with FIRCA before expired permits are renewed by LTA. Non-registered taxi permit holders will need to register with FIRCA for a Tax Identification Number (TIN) and lodge all outstanding income tax returns before the provisional approval letter from LTA is stamped. For contact persons, refer to Contact Us.
