$98,000 Tax Bill for Tax Expert!

For those of you who missed Victor Lals investigative article in yesterdays Fiji Sun, here is a copy to munch over. This is begining to remind me of Deep Throat and the Watergate Scandal!

By the way, there is more to it then meets the eye. Watch this space!!

A Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority consultant had not paid taxes for his consultancy services totalling nearly $180,000 and has been assessed now for $98,000.
It raises the question of why the consultant’s tax was not deducted in the first instance at source.
And in a separate development, a FIRCA board member claimed an $18,000 refund purportedly for his loss on a rental property.
He was allowed a refund on his tax although, generally, the write-off of loss is only allowed against the income from the property. No audit was carried out on him. The sources claim that the board member got favourable consideration because of his strategic position, and are calling for his returns to be thoroughly audited.
According to FIRCA sources, another prominent businessman linked to an interim Cabinet minister has also become a major beneficiary of the tax amnesty, as well as other prominent persons in public life.The revelations regarding the FIRCA board member come in the wake of turmoil inside the organisation with Parmod Archary, FIRCA’s general manager Development Services, being sent on leave last week by the FIRCA board over his own personal tax matters.
Mr Archary is accused of filing his return late, and also for retuning his income on rental for one year, instead of two. He had condensed the income in one year.
Mr Archary had been with the Fiji National Provident Fund for most of his working career. He retired and then went back to FIRCA but was recalled as acting FNFP CEO after the coup, and then sent back to FIRCA.
Sources inside FNPF and FIRCA claim that Mr Archary is being victimised because as acting CEO at the FNPF he had refused to accede to a request after the December 5 coup that all legal work of the FNFP be transferred to another law firm. The same FIRCA sources also want to know why an interim Cabinet minister, accused of attempted tax evasion, and later of not disclosing his funds in an Australian bank account was not, like Mr Archary, asked to stand down from Cabinet while FIRCA carried out an investigation into his tax matters. They want to know why the interim minister was not taken to task for not filing his returns for three years.
They also want the minister’s income in Australia to be investigated by the Financial Intelligence Unit.
The FIRCA sources also say other taxpayers need to know the source of the funds. If they are from Fiji, was approval sought from the Reserve Bank of Fiji to remit the funds to Australia?
If the funds emanated from abroad, what were the sources of funds, and was tax paid on them? In August, after a two-year investigation, this newspaper revealed the interim Cabinet minister’s attempted tax evasion and sent all the relevant documents and the Australian and British forensic tax accountants’ analysis to the Prime Minister’s office, and to George Langman, the deputy head of FIRCA. To date, both claim they never received the documents.
Is the denial, many are asking, a mere subterfuge, to avoid having to name the minister in the mould of the suspended Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki?
Mr Bole disclosed that the interim Prime Minister wrote to him in August, directing him to investigate the allegations and provide him with a report.
“That has been done and the report given to the Prime Minister. But I am not going to reveal the result of the investigation because tax details of an individual are protected by law,” said Mr Bole.