The Papua New Guinea Trade Union Congress (PNGTUC) and its affiliated unions have supported the points that were raised by the Minister for international Trade and Investment, Hon Richard Maru on the urgency to investigate companies and businesses that have been operating on loss every financial year.
PNGTUC Secretary, Mr Clemence Kanau said no sane person or rather a Government will condone such businesses to conduct their business while declaring nil profit to avoid paying taxes.
“Where is the logic of doing business continuously whilst incurring nil profit”? He questioned.
He urged the Government to immediately investigate these businesses that have been deliberately evading and bypassing our tax laws.
“This matter is a very serious crime in other countries where offenders are slapped with fines or banned from doing business again. If businesses are paying due taxes on time, these taxes will be used by the Government to invest in education, Health, Law and order and most importantly it would create more employment opportunities for citizens”. Mr Kanau said
He said the workers throughout the country are currently paying K4 billion in taxes annually while the country’s extractive industries pays a mere K2 billion when earning billions more in profit. This shows a huge disparity.
“The major oil palm companies are classical examples of those companies that evade tax. They have never paid any taxes to date while still in business but they continue to declare nil profit annually”.
“The extractive industries such as mining, logging companies etc are multibillion kina industries, they obviously earn billions but they are only a minimal taxpayer in comparison to the business they operate”. Mr Kanau said.
“It is a glaring disparity between our workers and businesses , where the workers are taxed through their salaries and wages automatically whilst these so called businesses keep bypassing the law by declaring nil profit to avoid paying tax” He said
He added that the law must be strengthened to investigate and impose severe penalties to such businesses.
