14/09/2022
IRC TO UNDERTAKE MASSIVE DE-REGISTRATION OF INACTIVE TINs SOON!
The Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) will undertake a massive deregistration of inactive Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) soon. This was revealed at the IRC’s Provincial Managers meeting in Port Moresby APEC HAUS last week (5th – 9th of September 2022).
The IRC Provincial Managers Meeting is an annual event where all the provincial managers meet to assess their prior year’s performance, address operational and emerging challenges, and set targets for the following year. It is an event where the Commissioner General and the top management interact with the managers directly and direct provinces to the overall vision of the organization.
For the last two years, the provincial tax centres, aside from attending to their routine revenue collection measures, have been tasked to undertake a Taxpayer Mapping exercise. This exercise was aimed at identifying the physical location of taxpayers in each of the provinces.
The IRC has a significant challenge in identifying TIN holders. Many individuals and businesses apply and obtain a TIN just to open a bank account but fail to comply with their obligations to pay and file their tax returns.
The Commissioner General Sam Koim revealed that majority of the TINs on the IRC register are inactive. He added “we don’t know whether the holders of those inactive TINs are in business. Locating who is doing what business under a which TIN has been a challenge. You would have a situation where one would obtain a TIN in Port Moresby but carrying on business in Vanimo without the knowledge of the tax office, for example.”
He provided an example that “Morobe Province has 10,759 TINs but our physical inspections established only 1,058 TINs (businesses). Similarly, in Manus 177 out of 455 TINs were identified to be operating in the province.”
Mr. Koim said “to address these challenges, we have initiated the Taxpayer Mapping exercise which was completed. For the TINs that were identified to be in business but haven’t been compliant – known knowns – we will be inspecting them and bring them to active.
However, for those TINs that were not established through the Mapping Exercise -- known unknowns –, we will give them a month to come forward and bring their compliance up to date. Thereafter, we will undertake a mass deregistration of inactive TINs. We will then write to the banks to close all the bank accounts for those deregistered TINs.
Once we have a clean register, we will introduce new risk-based TIN registration requirements which will include potential rejection of new TIN applicants who display a habitual non-compliant behaviour. For instance, if a person registers three TINs but filed nothing and/or paid nothing, we will reject the application for a new one. That is the kind of measures we will be introducing hence I am forewarning inactive TIN holders of what’s coming soon."
IRC has 19 tax centres around the country, including the four regional centres. Most of the provincial centres are run by provincial managers.
Authorized for Release
Sam Koim, OBE
Commissioner General
https://irc.gov.pg/news/media-releases/irc-to-undertake-massive-de-registration-of-inactive-tins-soon
