Focus on firms adjusting records

THE Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) is profiling businesses that under declare their income, commissioner general Sam Koim says.
Koim said businesses that charged extra fees on Eftpos (electronic funds transfer at point of sale) machines needed to stop.
There had been concerns on businesses charging a fee for the use of the Eftpos.
“There are two sides to it,” Koim said.
“One is the banks – those Eftpos machines’ owners are the banks.
“They distribute those Eftpos so one of the things is that the Eftpos fees are charged per value of transaction, not per transaction.
“The other thing is that if we go down and try to audit them, they will then, on record, say that the recorded sales are smaller.
“So they either look at bank fees or they are doing it for tax and we are profiling a number of them, and we are carrying out audits, and we are prosecuting some that deliberately under declare their income.”
Bank South Pacific Financial Group Ltd (BSP) chief executive office Robin Fleming said there was not need to charge an extra fee charged for BSP Eftpos.
“BSP regularly informs customers that they should not pay additional fees to any merchant who tries to apply their own surcharge for use of a BSP Eftpos terminal,” he said.
“Under the terms and conditions accepted by the bank’s merchants, they are not permitted to charge additional fees on customers.”
Fleming said businesses who did this would be cautioned and if they did not conform the bank would take back the terminals and discontinue their relationship with the business.
BSP retail general manager Daniel Faunt added that the availability of Eftpos at any business increased the volume of sales because it provided customers a safer and convenient option to make purchases and withdraw cash.
He said in 2020, the bank removed the fee of 50 toea per transaction for merchants and the fee was now one per cent of the purchase amount which for small transactions below (K50) meant a lower fee.
Faunt added that they had also waived the Eftpos merchant service charge for Kundu Standard customers since May 2021.