The Fiji Revenue & Customs Authority has recorded a solid revenue performance with outstanding tax collection last year.

Chief Executive Officer, Jitiko Tikolevu said that FRCA has exceeded the revenue collection in 2011 by $42.4million whereas the total tax revenue collected was $1.586 billion against the revised forecast of $1.543 billion.

Tikolevu said that when compared to the original forecast, FRCA has exceeded the collection by $89.0 million.

He said the original forecast of $1.496 billion was increased by $46.6m during the 2012 Budget process, and to collect $42.4m in addition to $46.4m shows that FRCA has performed well throughout the year.

Tikolevu added that most of the $42.4m positive revenue variance was received from Income Tax and Value Added Tax.

He said the increased VAT rate from 12.5% to 15% last year has further ensured that VAT continues to remain the dominant source of tax revenue in the future.

Tikolevu said that FRCA's performance has assisted the funding of the 2011 National Budget as they had collected about 90% of total government revenue in 2011 as compared to the 84.8% recorded in 2010.

Story by: Sneh Chaudry