The Fiji Detector Dog Unit (FDDU) held an open day today for female officers from the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) and the Fiji Police Force to seek their interest in becoming K-9 handlers.
This year marks the 6th anniversary of FDDU and they have been instrumental in drug, undeclared currency and firearms and ammunition seizures. The Unit is currently male dominated, however, its leadership would like to advance the Unit with the inclusion of female officers.
Applauding the initiative, FRCS CEO Mr. Mark Dixon encouraged female officers from FRCS and the Fiji Police to join they FDDU.
“This is an excellent opportunity for our female officers to consider a future career as a detector dog handler – breaking down barriers, changing mind-sets and proving that there is absolutely no job in border enforcement that women cannot do just as well as men. It will open up additional avenues for women in our border agencies and enhance our capability in this critical area that helps keep Fiji safe” Mr. Dixon said.
“I am certain that our female officers will be just as successful in the K-9 field as their male counterparts.”
Representing the Fiji Police Force was the Director Human Resource Manager Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Meli Sateki said, “The FDDU’s K-9 capabilities, through the support of the New Zealand Police continues to be strengthened and it is an exciting time to be part of the Unit and we do hope that this open day will encourage more women officers to join the Unit”.
The Open Day programme included presentations on requirements for being a K-9 handler, trainings involved, success stories of FDDU, a walkthrough of the kennel and demonstration with K-9.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) would like to advise Fijians that the Service does not request payments through social media or messaging apps such as Viber and WhatsApp.

FRCS has received reports of  people impersonating Customs Officers and requesting customs clearance payments through social media or messaging apps.

We wish to clarify that FRCS payments are only made to cashiers at FRCS Offices, online or through FRCS bank accounts. Additionally, FRCS only uses its social media platforms for education and awareness or to enhance the Organisation’s visibility.

Fijians should report to FRCS on 3243000 or 1326 or info@frcs.org.fj if they receive requests for any payment, including payment of taxes, duties or levies through social media or messaging apps. They should also request for copies of relevant documentation or reference numbers from those requesting payments for verification with FRCS.

FRCS is concerned about scammers impersonating FRCS Officers and swindling money out of Fijians.  The penalty for the unlawful assumption of character of a FRCS Officer is a fine not exceeding $25,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, or both.

We wish to advise all Fijians to be vigilant and avoid becoming prey to such fraudulent activities.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) Officers have intercepted yet another consignment of goods countering attempts of customs duty fraud.

While reviewing the import documents, FRCS Officers found anomalies indicating undeclared goods and upon physical inspection, two cartons of cigarettes and several highly dutiable undeclared goods were discovered. Undeclared goods included new tyres, sofa, sports equipment, food items, printer, vehicle accessories, cosmetics and electrical goods, etc.  

FRCS CEO Mr. Mark Dixon stated that the Service promoted voluntary compliance and trusted the importers and customs agents to accurately report the type, value, and country of origin for the merchandise they bring into the country for which the right amount of duty must be paid.  

However, Mr. Dixon said FRCS will not condone customs fraud as this deprives the Fijian Government of revenue through customs duties and taxes that would otherwise be used to fund vital public services such as schools, hospitals and infrastructure.  

“Additionally, the fraudulent companies also gain a competitive advantage over honest traders by having lower importation costs for their products yet selling at the same prices,” he said.

Customs Agents and Brokers are also reminded to accurately declare all import items on the invoices as an incorrect declaration can be liable to penalties and imposition of further stringent measures.

Last year alone, FRCS either intercepted, detained or seized more than 1330 different goods at the border.

Mr. Dixon has encouraged importers to contact the FRCS team at 324300 or 1326 or email at info@frcs.org.fj for any assistance or clarification.

The 2022/2023 fiscal year started on a very positive note with the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) collecting a net revenue of $190.2m in August 2022. We have outperformed the forecast for the month by $12.9m or 7.3 percent and August 2021 collections by a considerable $105.8m or 125.3%.

FRCS CEO, Mr. Mark Dixon attributed the strong revenue performance to Fiji’s current conducive economic environment.

“A little over 12 months ago, Fiji was experiencing its third wave of COVID-19 infections that led to a massive drop in revenue collections. The comparatives against the tax performance for the same period last year looks very promising and perfectly shows how tax revenue has recovered much faster than earlier anticipated,” Mr. Dixon stated.

Consumption taxes such as Domestic VAT (+$43.6m), Import VAT (+$24.5m) and Fiscal Duty (+$10.6m) recorded an average increase of 132.3%. Furthermore, Company Tax (+$6.9m or 51%), Departure Tax (+$6.2m or 6890%), Withholding Tax (+$4.3m or 102%), Domestic Excise Duty (+$3.6m or 103%), PAYE Tax (+$3.3m or 34%) and Water Resource Tax (+$2.8m or 48%) all recorded collections higher than August 2021 collections.

Revenue collections are expected to remain strong in the future months.

Mr. Dixon also stated that the outstanding result is a testament to the hard work, innovative thinking and dedication of the FRCS Team.

“The results we’ve achieved in recent months demonstrate the strong momentum we have at FRCS. We are extremely proud of this result and grateful to everyone at FRCS for the role they played in achieving these results.

“I would also like to thank our taxpayers for filing their tax returns and paying their taxes. A large percentage of the tax revenue collected by the FRCS comes in voluntarily from taxpayers and we thank them for this,” Mr. Dixon said.

FRCS now has a new Executive Leadership Team (ELT) led by Mr. Dixon. The executive team comprises of the Chief of Staff Mr. Shavindra Nath, Chief Information Officer Ms. Emily Yalimaiwai, Director Intelligence, Compliance & Investigations Ms. Kelerayani Dawai, Director Border & Head of Customs Revenue Ms. Shelini Kumar, Director Taxation Ms. Momina Beg and Director People Capability and Culture Mr. Ben Chand.

“FRCS is progressing in its transformational change journey and businesses and taxpayers are already seeing the many positive benefits of the changes that we have made,” Mr. Dixon said.

He said the new leadership team will further drive the ongoing transformation at FRCS.

FRCS Executive Leadership Team– from the left are, Chief Information Officer Ms. Emily Yalimaiwai, Chief of Staff Mr. Shavindra Nath, Director Intelligence, Compliance & Investigations Ms Kelerayani Dawai, Chief Executive Officer Mr. Mark Dixon (middle), Director Border & Head of Customs Revenue Ms. Shelini Kumar, Director People Capability & Culture Mr. Ben Chand and Director Taxation Ms. Momina Beg.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) has launched the online filing of Corporate Income Tax (CIT) for tax years 2015 to 2021 on the Taxpayer Online Service (TPOS). CIT is one of the major tax processes of FRCS, which impacts over 35, 000 taxpayers.
For the 2021/2022 Financial Year, CIT had contributed 13.6% or $229.9 million towards the overall revenue collection of $1.692 billion. CIT is filed by companies, co-operatives, estates, trusts and partnerships.
The launch of the CIT online filing for tax years 2015 to 2021 is a significant milestone for FRCS and a demonstration of our commitment to modernise the tax administration, enhance taxpayer experiences and provide more efficient services to Fijians.
Close to 40 CIT returns were filed successfully on TPOS on the first day of the roll-out.
Our digital service aligns with the Fijian Government’s strategy on digital transformation. TPOS is a self-service platform that has transformed the Fijian tax administration with the aim to achieve voluntary compliance, self-assessment environments as well as enhanced the ease of doing business.
FRCS had planned to launch the Personal Income Tax (PIT) online filing for tax years 2015 to 2021 on TPOS simultaneously with CIT online filing for tax years 2015 to 2021. However, this implementation has been deferred to Tuesday 6th September 2022 due to technical complexities related to the migration of data from FRCS’s legacy system.
It is important that all data is migrated correctly to TPOS to avoid any adverse impact on the taxpayers after PIT online filing for tax years 2015 to 2021 is implemented. To facilitate the roll-out of PIT online filing for tax years 2015 to 2021 from next week Tuesday, there will be a system downtime from close of business Friday 2nd September to Monday 5th September 2022. During this time, TPOS will be unavailable.
TPOS went live in December 2019, enabling taxpayers 24/7 access to the FRCS services. Some of these services include Joint ID Card, statement of accounts, ability to update information and file, amend and object to tax returns. TPOS is one of the largest projects in Fiji and currently has more than 100 different services online.
To date, more than 63,000 taxpayers have signed up for TPOS. We encourage more taxpayers to sign up. To access the TPOS portal, taxpayers need to email us the completed one-time login code form available on https://www.frcs.org.fj/wpcontent/uploads/2019/06/FRCS002_Signup-Authentication-Forms-1.pdf and we will send them the code to sign-up.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) has collected net revenue of $1,692.6m for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, surpassing the forecast by $11.7m or 0.7%. The forecast has been achieved despite an upward revision in the 2021-2022 Revised Budget by $83m or 5.2%.
According to the FRCS CEO, Mr. Mark Dixon, compared to the 2020-2021 fiscal year, overall net collections have shown a remarkable growth by $279.6m or 19.8%.
“We ended the month of July on a very high note, recording a total collection of $186.6m which is above the forecast by $6.4m or 3.5%. The July 2022 collections have shown spectacular growth in comparison to July 2021 collections with an increase in revenue by $71.9m or 62.6%,” he said.
Mr. Dixon said that the 2021-2022 revenue collection started relatively slow with August 2021 recording one of the lowest collections of $84.4m since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, he said that the revenue collection increased in the later months of 2021-2022 with various initiatives undertaken by the Fijian Government such as providing financial support to businesses, injecting cash into the economy through unemployment assistance schemes, re-opening the international borders and other budgetary support.
‘The monthly average net revenue collections in the first 6 months of the year was $130m which later increased to $150m in the second half of the year. The average monthly collection in the last quarter stood at $176.1m. The strong revenue collections in the recent months can be attributed to the recovery of our businesses, the rebound of the tourism sector and increased confidence shown by our consumers. Consumption taxes such as Domestic VAT, Import VAT, Fiscal Duty, Domestic Excise have all been contributing to the positive revenue outcome,” Mr. Dixon said.
Despite the period of recovery and slow revenue collection in the earlier months of the fiscal year, FRCS continued to release refunds promptly to assist businesses with their cash flows. $192.8m has been released in VAT refunds for the fiscal year, exceeding the forecast by $2.3m.

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) collected a net revenue of $193.8m in June 2022, the highest monthly revenue collected during and post COVID-19 pandemic period. The collections outperformed the forecast by $15.3m or 8.5 percent. The forecast for June 2022 was $178.5m. The collections for June 2022 are also 57.8% or $70.99m, higher over June 2021.
FRCS CEO, Mr. Mark Dixon said this is really great news because it indicates that the Fijian economy is growing and recovering strongly post COVID.
“The tax collections were across all tax types, which shows that it is not only tourism that is doing fantastically well but all elements of our economy are recovering from COVID and delivering strong results and creating new jobs,” Mr. Dixon said.
Consumption taxes such as Domestic VAT (Value Added Tax), Import VAT, Fiscal Duty and Domestic Excise have all increased considerably with some of the tax types recording their highest levels in 2 years.
The promising improvement noted in the international tourism space has also seen a strong increase in the Departure Tax collection.
According to Mr. Dixon, given the improved economic conditions, coupled with the pick-up in investment activities and expected high consumption demand, revenue collections are expected to maintain their positive trend.
“We are confident that those revenue collections will continue to be strong for the rest of this year and things are looking good into the next year as well,” he said.

JOINT PRESS RELEASE

10 June 2022 – The Tertiary Scholarships and Loans Service (TSLS) and the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) today to facilitate the loan recovery processes for graduate TELS (Tertiary Education Loans Scheme) recipients who are employed. Both TSLS and FRCS wish to strengthen and improve the current student loan recovery process.

TSLS is mandated under its Act to implement transparent and accountable management of government funding provided for tertiary scholarships and loans. As per the MOU, TSLS will be responsible for collecting student data and providing FRCS with the list of student data for verification processes.

TSLS CEO Dr. Hasmukh Lal said the MOU signing was a significant achievement for both organisations in strengthening partnership and collaboration around loan recovery through joint enforcement, compliance, and monitoring.

“Both TSLS and FRCS intend to carry their responsibilities outlined in this MOU in a spirit of cooperation and willingness with clear standard operating procedure underpinned with demarcated responsibilities.,” he said.

“The purpose of this collaboration is to provide ease and convenience to the TELS funded students in terms of generating loan statements, acquiring travel release and repayment mechanisms.”

FRCS CEO Mr. Mark Dixon welcomed the partnership, highlighting that the signing of the MOU coincided well with the implementation of student loan services on the Taxpayer Online Service (TPOS) early this week.

According to Mr. Dixon, the introduction of a student loan online facility through TPOS will provide students with a convenient way to manage their loan or scholarship affairs.

“The student loan online services will also strengthen debt collection and reduction of student loan arrears, as all key data and information related to student loans will be available through TPOS and can be easily accessed reducing the need to visit FRCS or TSLS Offices,” he said.

“The partnership between the two organisations to collaboratively work together to share information will facilitate better service delivery, support better decision making and, enhance the ease of access to services.

“Our online service also promotes the Fijian Government’s efforts to modernise and digitize its services to offer an enhanced customer service experience,” Mr. Dixon said.

Through the student online service, students will be able to access their loan statements, send notifications on employment, calculate eligibility for accelerated repayment incentives and assign tax agents to perform tasks on their behalf. In addition, students and guarantors can make repayments and apply for temporary and permanent release to travel abroad.

To access student online services, it is mandatory to sign in for TPOS which  can be accessed through the FRCS website www.frcs.org.fj.

For further enquiries, please contact Mr. Ashneel Singh, Coordinator Communications and Awareness: communications@tsls.com.fj  or phone 8921240 or Ms. Devika Narayan, Manager Corporate Communications: dnarayan@frcs.org.fj or phone 3243035.