TAXATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN PNG
By Minnie Banimbi
Tax Analyst, Credit Corporation (PNG) Ltd
Most often the challenge I face in my role as a tax professional is knowing how much of taxes that taxed from hardworking Papua New Guinean’s (PNG) earnings and income and watching our Government squander it away on unproductive resources, political propagandas, failed planning and development ideas and unfortunately politicians’ lavish lifestyles. There is no balance between how much is being taxed and how much should be utilized from these taxes. There remains a huge gap between PNG Taxpayers’ taxed monies and how the PNG Government’s communication of these taxed monies are filtered through in providing feedback to the PNG citizen’s Taxpayers and results on around how our taxes are being utilized and holding our Government accountable for it. This course will help bridge that gap and allow us to build common ground and understanding on the implications of these decisions undertaken by our Government. There has to be a basis for making these economical decisions and accountability for our Taxpayers’ monies.
Secondly, this course will open doors to invite more tax experts to get on board and open a wider network of community and forums to hold discussions around the topic of taxation and its implications in PNG regarding the utilization of PNG citizen’s Taxpayer’s monies. There are a lot of tax professionals in PNG however our Government are not providing a forum to listen to them and raising questions or ideas with these tax experts to work with them. We are a Team at the end of the day working towards a common good for all PNG Taxpayers. Applying the tax and collection of the tax is one thing however how the tax should be utilized is another. PNG citizens are already heavily burden with digging deep into their pockets sometimes even beyond to the extent that sometimes they end up with nothing to sustain themselves at the end of the day. Currently our Government is not at the level where it should be to make certain economical decisions with how they should be utilizing PNG Taxpayer monies which sometimes bring no value back to the people of PNG. There has to be some guidance around how Taxpayer’s monies should be utilized of which the wider community of tax professionals and experts would be able to provide through this course.
Finally, this course will allow better decisions to be made by our PNG Government together with other departments and organizations. The outcome and results out from this course will and can be used as a basis or a prerequisite to making better and productive economical and beneficial decisions from the utilization of PNG taxpayer’s monies by our PNG Government including other departments and organisations. It can be and should be documented for future reference and developed into a process document or policy for our PNG Government to use as guidance. Once documented it should be presented to Parliament to be passed and therefore give a voice for the PNG citizens on how their hard-earned Taxpayer monies are being utilized for the better future planning of PNG.
Learn more about the PDIA 2 Cohort here.