By Mary Lyn Fonua

Over $240 million pa'anga in revenues was collected by the Tonga Government for 2020/2021 - that's about $10 million pa'anga more than they had estimated for the year.

The biggest piece of the tax pie came from Consumption Tax (CT), 44% ($105.6M) of revenue collections, while 17% ($40.08M) came from PAYE and Income Taxes.

During the year Consumption Tax compliance was the highest ever, while Tonga is importing more and consuming more domestically.

This insight into the composition of Tonga's revenue collections was presented to the community last week during the Ministry of Revenue and Customs annual Tax Week for 2021.

Seminars

A series of seminars for different economic sectors was held at the Queen Salote Wharf Fe'ao Mo e Ngalu Building, where customs and revenue officers made themselves available for open discussions with the private sector and general public.

Kelemete Vahe, CEO of the Ministry of Revenue and Customs (MoRC) said the seminars recognized that Tonga’s economy is facing challenges.

He said the seminars, “stimulated greater insights on the Ministry's key operations areas, and related to the contribution required from the taxpayers end.

“The seminars allowed participants to engage in open discussion on fiscal hot topics during this economical challenging time,” he said.

MoRC officer, Pipiena Tanaki said the seminars had attracted almost 300 participants over three days, when officers made presentations to three groups every day.

“It was very successful and a milestone for the ministry,” she said. “For some groups it was their first forum with us.”

Participants came from government departments, public enterprises, civil society NGOs, churches and transport sectors; followed by retailers, wholesalers, tourism and professional services; then the construction sector, agriculture, fishing exporters and financial sectors.

Issues that were raised included concerns over the delay in arrival of cargo vessels in Tonga, “because we can't accept vessels from Fiji and it has to go to another port before coming to Tonga and this increases the freight costs and adds cost to imports,” Pipiena said.

There was also a concern to look into tax forms to simplify them and make them easier to understand.

“There were lots of questions,” she said.

Pipiena said the increased revenues during the last financial year were also a result of different actions taken to collect taxes and a different approach.

“MORC is tougher on falekoloa’s reporting, and a requirement for cash registers was implemented during the last financial year,” she said.