By EDDIE OSIFELO
THE Inland Revenue Division of Ministry of Finance and Treasury has an uncollected debt of $1.9 billion.
IRD Commissioner Joseph Dokekana told the Bills and Legislative Committee through a virtual on Tuesday that the debt started 20 years ago.
The Committee was inquiring into the Tax Administration Bill 2020 to provide for the administration of the tax laws of Solomon Islands, with the intention of providing a modern administrative basis for the tax system and ensuring that arrangements are consistent across the different taxes administered by the Commissioner.
Dokekana said IRD blamed the system of capturing wrong data since 2005.
“That system put some sort of data which is not correct.
“Then come up to now, we still have an issue with the system to determine the value,” he said.
Dokekana said the actual debt of IRD will not be like that.
He said the current system is corrupt.
Further to that, as part of the reform, Dokekana said the government engaged a Technical Advisor of Asian Development Bank to look at the system and correct it.
He said tax returns and payments do not reconciled.
The hearing continues this week.
