IRC aims to collect K9.3bil in tax revenue this year: Koim

By DALE LUMA
THE Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) is looking to collect about K9.3 billion in tax revenue for this year, says commissioner-general Sam Koim.
Responding to a question from The National, Koim said the Government had increased the IRC’s revenue target by about K1.4 billion. “Last year, we collected, in terms of net transactions to the WPA (Waigani Public Accounts), our target was K8.1 billion, but we transferred about K8.3 billion as of Dec 31, 2021,” he said.
“So we exceeded the target by K200 million but in terms of gross collection, we’ve gone over about K9.5 billion. We had about K721 million transferred to all the provinces in GST distribution, we gave about 60 per cent of the GST back to the provinces where the GST is collected to support the provincial government.
“Last year was a very challenging year, we still had subdued economic conditions as a result of the global Coronavirus (Covid-19).
“But our team stepped up in a major way, with the Covid, we also re-strategised and moved into where the leakages were and low hanging fruits and also moving into agile way of doing business.
“In that way, it has really yielded some results that were great so we are looking at taking advantage of some of those and doing a lot of new things this year as well.”
Koim said the IRC was developing products and projects to improve the organisation and also boost revenue collection.
“We are hoping that by the time all the projects come to fruition, we’ll be collecting increased revenue at an optimal and sustainable level in the next three years,” he said.
“This year, the Government has increased our revenue target by at least K1.3 to K1.4 billion.”