The Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) will begin criminal prosecutions against individuals, businesses and companies involved in tax related offences.
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.
He said case profiles have already been compiled and the IRC will now begin prosecutions.
“In the history of this organization there’s never been, to my knowledge, tax crime prosecutions done. So people have been stealing monies that they are supposed to pay, not only their taxes’ but taxes they withhold on behalf of other tax payers, like employers, withholding taxes belonging to their employees,” said Koim.
The Commissioner General said with criminal prosecutions afoot, this will put the spotlight on the ‘Black Economy.’
Koim said many people operate outside of the tax system, and the IRC will go after them.
“There are others who are not paying taxes and making a lot of money because they are not paying taxes and are unaccountable, so those are the ones we are trying to put under the spotlight and prosecute them so they pay their fair share of taxes and subject themselves to the laws and regulations of this country,” he said.