The Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority says several supermarkets should have gadgets in all of their cash registers by 1st January next year.
The idea is to get the true sales at a store.
Acting General Manager Taxation, Fazrul Rahman says FRCA will start putting up these gadgets by September this year and they will first look at the high risk supermarkets.
He says they will extend the coverage to all supermarkets, hardware shops and other stores later.
Rahman says FRCA will pay for all the costs for this exercise as $5 million was allocated for FRCA’s various technological improvements in the 2016/2017 National Budget.
He says part of the money will be used for the VAT Monitoring System.
Rahman adds that extensive consultations will take place with the traders.
He confirms that they have intelligence that is suggesting there is a high degree of non-compliance in the supermarket sector.
Rahman says with the new gadgets from later this year, FRCA will receive real time data in their office as soon as someone purchases an item at a supermarket.
This system is being used by countries like Belgium and South Korea.
Rahman has revealed that there is $2.8 billion of movement of funds in the Fijian economy which is not formally recorded.
He says this is black economy and government is losing out on $716 million in taxes.
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