Praneeta Prakash 
[Source: Parliament of Fiji ]
Fiji is actively working towards rectifying issues that led to its blacklisting by the European Union in 2019.
FRCS Chief of Staff, Shavindra Nath says necessary steps are being taken to ensure that Fiji complies with international tax norms and improves its financial sector.
He highlighted this during submissions to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence on Fiji Revenue and Custom Services 2020-2022 annual report.
“We have actually come a long way. We are blacklisted under three different categories, tax transparency, whereby we need to have exchange of information platforms across jurisdictions, so that if you have MNEs operating across jurisdictions, there’s visibility about their tax affairs, their finances, everything.”
Nath is optimistic that Fiji will be removed from the EU blacklist soon.
“We are seeking assistance with the Australian Development Bank, PFTAC. The EU and the OECD are also helping us to implement these standards, fairly straightforward, non-controversial. So we are planning to, if everything goes in order, we should be out of the blacklist in the next 12 to 18 months.”
Nath says Fiji was first placed on the EU’s gray list in 2018 after a detailed assessment of the country’s tax policies.
He adds that EU had given Fiji a 12-month period to rectify the identified issues, but after failing to meet the EU’s expectations, Fiji was blacklisted in 2019.
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