The finance ministry has “resurrected” a significant discount regime for alleged tax offenders – businesses and self-employed professionals – by including a provision in a recently tabled draft bill dealing with bootleg tobacco products.
The draft legislation is up for debate in Parliament this week.
A return to the previous regime would allow discounts of between 20 and 90 percent for fines related to violations that include the use of forged or “phantom” tax information, failure to issue receipts or invoices, erroneous tax data etc. The discounts, on the fines, would kick-in with the lump sum payment of the total arrears that is recalculated without the misleading or fraudulent behavior or omissions.
A business or taxpayer would also have to admit to the violation.
The previous framework was passed in October 2015 but not activated.
