16th Pacific Islands Tax Administrators Association (PITAA) Annual Heads Meeting

International Convention Center
Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands

PITAA consists of sixteen Pacific Islands countries. These are Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kingdom of Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, The Cook Islands, Federated State of Micronesia, Palau, Nauru, Niue, Tokelau, Republic of the Marshal Islands, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu.

In 2019, the conference was held in the Marshal Islands, and Data Tech International (DTI) was invited to participate. DTI presented its ultimate electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) platform, TaxCore, and many benefits it has brought to Fiji Island where it is implemented as VAT Monitoring System (VMS).

With TaxCore, every fiscal receipt handed out to a customer is instantly verifiable as it goes through the system and is forwarded directly to a local tax authority. This ensures a real-time monitoring system where any discrepancies can be easily caught.

DTI has shown how TaxCore brings benefits for everyone, not exclusively to the tax authority – meaning that taxpayers and customers also have a lot to look forward to.

Tax Authority Gets:

  • Significant Increase of Tax Collection
  • Decreased Activity of Grey Economy
  • Suppression of Tax Evasion

Taxpayers Get:

  • Protection for honest taxpayers (from unfair competition)
  • Minimized cost of compliance
  • Registration of both sales and purchases (B2B transactions)

The Public Gets:

  • Raise of consumer awareness
  • Clear information on the tax amount that goes to the government
  • Digital electronic invoices
  • Participation in the CCA (Customer Compliance Award Program)

TaxCore is a safe system based on the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) which gives full control to the tax authority. Although the system is based online, so it ensures real-time data transactions, some countries are facing difficulties with the internet infrastructure. Therefore, DTI ensured that TaxCore can work offline as well using secure element in the form of a smart cards that save data until the internet connection is re-established. This has proven most valuable when disaster happened right after launch in Fiji (April 2018) when cyclone Josie had devastated western parts of the island. All the sales records before the affected shops were closed due to the hurricane were preserved and reported to Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS).

The List of Participants

The PITAA conference of 2019 saw many important names attending. Besides the PITAA members participating were also distinguished observers from International Monetary Fund (IMF), Australian High Commission, New Zealand Inland Revenue Department, and many more.

It was a true honor to be invited to a conference which so many important names attended. Which is why DTI made sure to provide the latest information on technology in taxation and VAT monitoring and how it need to be utilized. Moreover, we made sure to lead with an example and support all our claims with situations and hardships we encountered on the way and have solved successfully.

The conference was a great opportunity for DTI to shed some light on why it is important for outdated tax collection systems are brought into the 21st century. A lot of data says that countries which dared embark on this journey have seen their efforts pay off significantly – and the goal of DTI is to help through this transition.