Internal Revenue Commission (IRC)

The Audit revealed that this flourishing retail taxpayer declared around K53 million in GST credits for the periods January 2015 to April 2020. In other words, the taxpayer was telling the IRC that the company was paying more than what it was collecting in GST for each and all of those six years.

IRC Commissioner General Sam Koim said, “We (IRC) are on target. There are only two times where IRC hit the K8 billion mark. One was in 2014, another one was in 2018. And those were the good times, but this is the most difficult time that we are hitting K8.1 billion and it would be probably more than that by the end of the week.”

Mr Koim said IRC meeting the 2021 target is due to effective collection strategies adopted by the Commission.

About K1,221,234.90 was withheld by the Provincial Government from service providers and companies this year as GST. 

This comes after the New Ireland Provincial Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Internal Revenue Commission in 2018, following a Provincial Executive Council decision to increase revenue internally as we move towards financial Autonomy.

He said this in response to an article published in The National newspaper on October 5 titled “City allocates over K14 million from tax to maintain roads.”

In a statement, Mr Koim said 60 percent of all the GST that is collected from the provinces is given back to them, to support their provincial budgets and IRC does the distribution 22^nd of every month.

In a small ceremony at the PNGPCL in Port Moresby, Minister for State Owned Enterprises William Duma presented the payment to IRC Commissioner General, Sam Koim in the presence of Kumul Consolidated Holdings (KCH) Managing Director Isikeli Taureka, PNGPCL Chairman Kepas Wali and its board members.

Mr Wali said the presentation was for the company’s provisional taxes for the balance of this year, as well as half of the 2019 net unassessed income tax.

Staff from the IRC taxpayer services unit made this clarification during an SME workshop in Lae, Morobe Province.

The collects a majority of PNG’s revenue through taxes, which drive the nation through the annual budget.

Schools, hospitals, roads and bridges are just some of the infrastructure and services made possible through tax collection.

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.

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.

The MOU forges a partnership between the East Sepik Provincial Government and IRC to increase compliance activities in the province. 

The MOU was signed by Governor Allan Bird and his administration and IRC Commissioner General, Sam Koim.

Governor Bird described the MOU as a culmination of two-and-a-half years of preparatory work.

“One of the first thing I did when taking office as governor was to check the internal revenue resources,” stated Bird.