Sir Nagora: Government reneged on tax promise

By MALUM NALU
FORMER Tax Review Committee chairman Sir Nagora Bogan says the Government has “eaten their own words” by increasing goods and services tax (GST) from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, in The National in 2017, had said he did not agree with imposing extra taxes on the already-overburdened people of this country.
He had told FM100 talkback show before the 2017 election that he did not agree with a 2015 recommendation by Sir Nagora’s committee to increase GST by 5 per cent.
Sir Nagora, when contacted yesterday for comment on the increase in GST, said O’Neill had spoken against GST in 2017 but had now increased it. “Now they (Government) are eating their own words,” he said.
“They have increased the GST and made adjustments to a lot of things.
“He (O’Neill) never had the foresight to see that it would come to a stage where he would eat his own words.”
Sir Nagora’s committee, after extensive review and consultation in 2013 to 2014, recommended the reform as a “complete, holistic and systematic package designed to be staged over eight years”.
“GST was one of the measures recommended,” he said.
“These recommendations of the Tax Review Committee were contained in two volumes of reports which were written in layman’s language and incorporated details of the methods of the tax reform, the findings and recommendations.”