Sam Koim

IRC Commissioner General, Sam Koim, says the aim of the exercise is to accurately record Goods & Services Tax at the point of sale, in whichever province it may be in, and revert the GST distribution to that Province.

Under the current tax legislation, the IRC distributes 60% of GST attributed to the Point of Sale back to the province in which the transaction was made.

During the signing of the MoU for the establishment of an IRC Office in Gulf Province, IRC Commissioner General Sam Koim, said the IRC was undertaking a de-grouping exercise for GST collections.

IRC Commissioner General Sam Koim says the organization has profiled a number of cases and will begin prosecutions very soon.

Speaking at the launching of the IRC’s 2021 Work Plan, Commissioner General, Sam Koim, said the IRC will begin criminal prosecutions for persons and organizations involved in tax offences.

Koim said the only way to deter tax offenders is to imprison perpetrators.

“If you effectively put people behind bars that’s the time that people will change. That the time tax fraudsters will change,” said Koim.

IRC Commissioner General, Sam Koim, says in the current environment they will be able to meet or surpass that target.

 “The budget for this year the projections is about K8.1 billion for this year, that’s the money we will be transferring to the WPA. But our collections should be around K9 billion because we also collect GST and transfer 60% back to the Provinces and then GST Refunds.

“If everything works well, we are very optimistic that we will meet the target or even exceed it. That depends on COVID-19 and other unforeseen circumstances,” said Koim.

The Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) now has an office at the Jiwaka provincial headquarters at Kurumul.

The office was officially opened on January 11^th by Jiwaka Governor, Dr. William Tongamp, and Commissioner General of IRC, Sam Koim.

The office was allocated by the Jiwaka Provincial Government as part of its objective to empower and benefit from revenues generated by IRC in the province.

IRC assigned three officers to Jiwaka and also delivered a new Toyota Land Cruiser to support the work in Jiwaka.

This was confirmed in a meeting held between the Southern Highlands Provincial Administrator, Joseph Kajetan, and IRC Commissioner General Sam Koim in Mendi yesterday.

The IRC office in Mendi closed down in 2017 during election related violence.

Since then Southern Highlands taxpayers were serviced by the Hagen Regional Tax Centre. The Commissioner General and the IRC team visited Mendi to see the business activities in the province and explore the possibility of reopening its office.

Mr Koim made this bold statement after announcing the arrest of one officer and the dismissal of another for separate misconducts.  

The terminated officer worked at IRC for 10 years, moving up the ranks to be a manager at the Debt Recovery Division (DLED). He used his position to print out a consolidated statement of accounts for particular taxpayer in 2019 which was subsequently used to extort money from that taxpayer. He was dismissed from IRC.

It is hoped that the renewal of the memorandum of understanding between the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) and the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) will reduce it.

The MOU signed between the two agencies on the 14^th of May allows for an efficient, streamlined process.

IRC Commissioner General, Sam Koim, said this partnership, which was first signed in 2013, allows ease of access for citizens and clients.

In a statement released on March 31st, the Commissioner General, Sam Koim, said “in the face of this crisis, we are immediately responding to keep the taxpaying community’s productive capacity intact as much as possible. Figuratively speaking, we have to keep the cows alive so that they continue to produce the milk after this crisis”.

“Although we as a country have so far been saved from this virus, we are inescapably vulnerable to the impact it will have on our economy.  We are not oblivious to that hence these measures to supplement the Government’s overall stimulus package.

Koim said individuals who run a company and incur a tax bill will still be liable even if they deregister the company.

The warning comes after change in tax laws, according to Koim.

“There’s a change of law to go after individuals, this is another message I would like the public to know,” he stated.

“People will think that I can register a company and once the IRC catches up with me, I can leave that company and go and register a new company.

His appointment comes after Dr Alois Daton’s acting appointment term came to an end last month.

Koim’s appointment was announced by Treasurer Sam Basil today.

In a statement issued Koim said he now has a mammoth task ahead of him, given the country’s company tax compliance rate of 9 percent rate last year.

There is also the K18 billion in unreported sales revenue in 2016 and a tax debt of K5 billion yet to be collected.