New rules of engagement

THE Eastern Highlands government says it will be contracting with businesses that comply with their tax obligations.
Governor Peter Numu made this commitment during a meeting held with Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) commissioner general Sam Koim and his team in Goroka this week.
According to IRC records, Eastern Highlands is the biggest of the Highlands provinces in terms of population and landmass and also has the largest number of registered taxpayers.
However, only a few businesses were actively paying and filing on time.
“Our focus in EHP lies in its potential, including consumption tax we could raise from the 700,000 plus population you have,” Koim said.
He said with the provincial government empowering the people in the province through agriculture projects, it would increase the ordinary people’s ability to buy goods and services from registered taxpayers, and this would lead to increase of taxes such as GST (goods and services).
Numu said: “One of the first things I did when taking office was to look at the internal revenue sources of the province. We revived the business arms of the provincial government and also signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with IRC early last year.
However, we have not implemented the MoU hence with this visit, we will be starting to action it.” The governor directed the provincial administration staff to work with IRC immediately to increase tax compliance in the province.
Meanwhile, according to IRC, Goroka has a tax centre that services all of Eastern Highlands including Kainantu. Given the number of taxpayers in Kainantu, and the distance from Goroka, a branch might be established.