PM urges IRC to step up

There is a lot of tax evasion in the country and the Internal Revenue Commission has been asked by Prime Minister James Marape to step up its compliance.

Companies who evade tax have been warned that strict penalties will be applied going forward.

Prime Minister James Marape, while on a visit to the Internal Revenue Commission Office with Treasurer Sam Basil, warned big companies who have been evading tax that their time is up, and they must own up as forensic audit will be conducted.

“For instance, tax compliance record is at 9 percent of all private companies and state agencies who should pay tax. In real number terms of the 157,403 companies, only 13,718 have complied in their tax returns in 2018, meaning that revenue we earned last year was from those 9 percent who volunteered to file,” stated PM Marape.

“This means our revenues last year was collected from only 9 percent of all of those who were to pay tax last year. I have asked IRC to step up its compliance for this shows that there is a lot of tax evasion in our country.

“IRC also said there was outstanding of about K2 billion in taxes.

“Our government will now modernize revenue collection, including paying and housing IRC and Customs officers well as they are our chief revenue agencies but we expect IRC leadership to step up their games.

“For those who evade taxes, especially big companies, your time is up, there will be stiff penalties going forward and we starting to do forensic audit so better own up now.

“I look forward to a time when all big corporations and all companies share the workload in paying tax and we can ease the burden of our small people paying huge tax out from their salaries.”

Author: 
Press release