Tax drive nets K6.9bil

 By JUNIOR UKAHA

ABOUT K6.9 billion in taxes was collected last year with 39% coming from personal income tax, Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) assessment manager Igo Morea says.

He disclosed this during a taxation workshop in Lae, Morobe on Tuesday.

Morea said the people who have jobs and are paying taxes are the ones holding the country together.

“A total of K6.85 billion in taxes was collected last year … of this, 39% came from personal income tax.

“As you can see, workers are really the ones contributing a lot to the government’s revenue. 

“We are all contributing in the running of this country,” Morea said.

Corporate tax was next, contributing 25%, followed by goods and service tax (GST) and others.

Morea said the reason why personal income tax accounted for a larger percentage of the government revenue was that many people are employed in LNG projects and spin-off businesses.

He said taxes alone contributed 20% of the government’s total annual revenue.

“From revenues received by the government last year, 21% was spent on education, 24% infrastructure, 12% health, 10% law and order and the rest on other items,” he added.

A number of participants at the workshop asked if the personal income tax should be reduced as it was affecting low-income workers. 

Morea said there was no increase in the income tax threshold and instead, it decareased.

“In fact, people are now taking home more pay.

“At one time, people earning K7,000 and above were taxed but now the government has raised it to K10,000,” Morea said.

He said that means that people earning around K300 per fortnight don’t pay tax.