Active Tax-Dodgers In

Fiji

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva. Nov. 5.

THE unfairness of Fiji’s taxation system, under which a great many well-to-do Asiatics es cape all direct taxation because of the inability of the Inland Revenue Department to track them down, is emphasised by the department’s annual report, which discloses that about 3,000 persons are dodging the £2-a-year residential tax.

Every male between the ages of 18 and 50, other than Fijians (who are taxed to the hilt by their own administration), Banabans and Ro tumans, is liable to residential tax, but there are generous exemptions, as in the case of fathers of five or more children.

In 1950 the tax realised only £47,430, plus £1,470 in arrears. This means that 23,715 persons paid the tax (22,446 in 1949). Registered tax payers who failed to pay the 1950 tax numbered 2,018, compared with 1,908 in 1949.

Most people would say that the department’s estimate of 3,000 dod gers is extremely conservative. (There is a population of about 130,000 non-natives in the Colony.)

Tax Millionaires

rR the first time in the Colony’s history, the Inland Revenue Department during 1950 col

lected more than a million pounds in taxes. The amount paid was £1,060,666 which included income tax, stamp duties, residential and other taxes.

Mining royalties amounted to £132,600; income tax to £835,600. The sum of £llB,OOO was paid in income tax by 2,580 individual European taxpayers. European companies contributed £651,150; Indian com

panies £1,637; Indian individual taxpayers £42,000; and Chinese in dividuals and companies about £20,000.

Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Ward, of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, Pitcairn Island, left the island on the Rangitata on October 5, en route to Australia.