Payments to drop by K1m per day

EXCISE tax payments is estimated to decrease by K1 million per day – a business challenge that will directly impact Government revenue, according to the PNG Business Council.
The council recently conducted a survey in which 119 businesses responded to.
Council president Nuni Kulu said: “The excise tax, particularly the assumption and based on the respondents, which were quite conservative, is at least K1 million per day in exercise collection loss that totals K365 million in terms of annual collection.
“From the salary and wages tax perspective, based on the 119 respondents alone, we’re looking at K13.4 million per annum, not coming back to the Government.
“Our estimation based on 5,000 taxpayers equates to about K565 million per annum.
“On GST (goods and services tax), we looked at 136 respondents.
“We’re looking at K15.5 million in GST collections not coming forward.
“And based on 2,000 taxpayers, that’s K230 million per annum in GST.
“In corporate tax, looking at the 118 respondents’ feedback, it equates to about K24.3 million.
“Again, on an assumption based on 2,000 taxpayers, that equates to about K412 million in corporate taxes.
“We have a total of K1.572 billion in missed Government collections based on this conservative assumption on the number of respondents in this survey.”
Executive director Douveri Henao said: “The critical thing about these numbers is that it does not include export receipts.
“What’s coming from gas, oil, palm oil and the rest is not captured in this collection.
“This is purely on the businesses operating in the country.”