The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) would like to congratulate six women in our customs and border control division for successfully graduating from the third phase of the Pacific Women’s Professional Development Program (PWPDP) last week.

Graduates Chief Customs Officer Claudette Whippy, Senior Customs Officers Tale Tikoisuva, Preethi Prasad, Mereoni Jikotani, Laisa Naulumatua and Customs Officers Anshu Mudaliar and Ani Mei Salusalu are not only proving that they can lead at all levels of FRCS but are also ready to mobilise positive changes in border protection, tax compliance, transnational crime investigations, maritime surveillance and facilitation of trade.

Keeping in line with the 2024 International Women’s Day campaign theme of “inspire inclusion”, our customs women are not only inspiring their fellow female colleagues to be included in leadership roles but for more women to join the customs profession.

In a joint initiative between the Oceania Customs Organisation (OCO), the Australian Border Force (ABF) and RMIT University, 44 women from 14 Pacific countries graduated from the third phase of the PWPDP.

Applauding our women for their excellent achievement, FRCS Acting CEO, Mr. Malakai Naiyaga said this was a fantastic achievement for our customs and border control leaders.

“It is great to see that our women are overcoming the hurdles and are making positive advances towards leadership role. We are proud of you all – well done,” Mr. Naiyaga said.

“FRCS is working actively and steadily over the years to become a gender-balanced administration and I am proud to state FRCS has a good gender balance in our leadership team and throughout the organization.”

FRCS Chief Customs Officer, Ms. Claudette Whippy said “Previously we thought that strategic leadership belonged to the executive level in our agencies.  But now we’re confident to apply strategic leadership within our own teams, units and departments to accomplish positive border protection outcomes.”

FRCS will be commemorating the International Women’s Day 2024 on Friday afternoon. Oceania Customs Organisation (OCO) Head of Secretariat Ms. Nancy Oraka will be the Chief Guest while we will also have speakers from Australian Tax Office (ATO), Australian Border Force (ABF) and FRCS.

FRCS would like to wish everyone a happy International Women’s Day.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) is embracing an open-door policy and developing a sound working relationship with taxpayers and its stakeholders.

Last week, FRCS held a forum for the registered tax agents in Suva as part of its continuous efforts to actively engage with the Agents. During the Forum, we updated them on the recent enhancements to the tax system processes and on current tax matters.   The forum is the first face to face event that FRCS has held, and it was well attended.

Tax agents play a vital role in Fiji’s tax system. While welcoming them to the forum, FRCS Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Malakai Naiyaga stated that the forum is intended to develop into a productive and collaborative relationship between Tax Agents and FRCS.

“FRCS has already made a commitment in its strategic plan to maintain its focus as being a customer centric organization. It is a journey which FRCS is taking that requires a lot of internal changes as well as a change in our organization culture which we are currently undertaking,” Mr. Naiyaga said.

“Central to this is our commitment to listen, gather feedback, implement improvements to the business processes not only focused on enhancing customer experience but also reducing the cost of doing business and closing any tax gaps”, he said.

According to Mr. Naiyaga, FRCS actively seeks to develop a trusted partnership with our taxpayers and partners such as the registered tax agents.

“We are committed to genuine consultation and the Tax Agent’s forum is a testament to that,” he stated.

“From both our perspectives, we strive to make it easy for all our citizens, both individuals and businesses to actively participate in the tax system and pay their fair share of taxes.”

Sharing some of the FRCS strategies aimed at improving the administration of tax and customs laws, Director Taxation Ms. Momina Beg emphasized on the importance of timely filing and payment of taxes.

Ms. Beg also highlighted that FRCS will be taking a firm stance on trust taxes which may include measures such as garnishing trust monies.

“Our dedicated taxpayer education team is available to assist, train and partner with you. We work with entities like FICA, visit businesses and partner with universities to promote tax literacy, with tax agents being our top priority,” she stated.

The tax agents were also reminded of the compliance requirements in accordance with the Tax Agent’s Code of Conduct 2018 and briefed on the enhancements made on the Taxpayer Online Service (TPOS) processes.

The forum ended with a networking session between the tax agents and our revenue team.

FRCS will also be holding forum for tax agents in the western and northern divisions in the coming months. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) minimum standards and two pillar solution  workshop for FRCS staff.

The OECD/G20 BEPS Project aims to create a single set of consensus-based international tax rules to address BEPS, and hence to protect tax bases while offering increased certainty and predictability to taxpayers.

Attended by auditors, technical analysts, policy officers, risk profilers, technical specialists, lawyers and managers from the operations, Intelligence, Compliance and Investigations, Corporate and Taxation team, the BEPS workshop mainly focused on the overview of the BEPS project and the BEPS Inclusive Framework , its objectives, role and governance. The workshop also highlighted the obligations and commitments associated with BEPS Inclusive Framework membership, as well as its benefits.

Discussions during the workshop also included the topics of harmful tax practices, description of the elements of Country- by- Country (CbC) reporting standards and the requirements to be met in order to start receiving CbC data, overviews of the two pillar solutions and peer reviews on harmful tax practices, CbC reporting and treaty abuse.

We would like to thank OECD Secretariat and the facilitators Ms. Melinda Brown and Ms. Laura Stefanelli for this workshop.