Koim targets tax reforms

By DALE LUMA
THE current challenge for the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) is to come up with reforms to make tax regimes flexible for the Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), says the acting commissioner–general Sam Koim.
He told the Start-Up PNG 2019 convention yesterday that the current tax legislations were outdated and discouraged people and businesses from paying tax.
“It’s a really complex regime and there a lot of process to follow,” he said.
“Some of the laws are really outdated and the income tax act is dated 1959 which is pre independence.
“A business degree is not needed to start a business.
“How can SMEs and MSMEs be expected to write 20 page reports to the IRC for compliance?
“Some of these systems actually scare people away from doing business and even scare people away and make it impossible for people to comply with our tax laws,” Koim said.
“Tax laws were created without considering the PNG context; to see if the country was compliant and could follow process.
“This is a reality for us as a tax administration, how to make our process user–friendly for simple people to comply.
“Going forward, we are thinking about reforming our systems and processes to get them simplified and fair for compliance purposes.
“We also want to reform the system so that it is tailored to our PNG context.”