The VAT Office have completed its background work and have identified these people in the legal practice who drive expensive vehicles, owns assets and some of them have rental and/or own office building in expensive areas in Port Vila and are not registered for Vanuatu’s Value Added Tax.
The Lawyers identified will be contacted by the VAT Compliance and Revenue Officers and once their taxable incomes are ascertained and if these amounts are over the VAT registration threshold which is 4 million vatu, these Lawyers will be forced registered for VAT purposes and all relevant administrative penalties will be imposed from the original due dates.
The VAT Office applies these legislative provisions where a person has not applied for VAT registration and the Director determines that the person is liable to be registered, Section 12(6) of the VAT Act No. 12 of 1998 [CAP. 247] provides that the person is deemed to be registered with effect from the date on which they first became liable to be registered or such later date as determined by the Director.
A person (business) is generally required to register for VAT for making taxable supplies of goods and services, subject to their turnover exceeding certain threshold.
The turnover threshold for VAT registration is when;
- The total value of all taxable supplies made by the person in any 12 month period has exceeded 4 million vatu; or
- There are reasonable grounds for believing that the total value of taxable supplies to be made by any person in the next 12 months will exceed 4 million vatu.
The VAT Office warns that any person (business) carrying on a taxable activity in Vanuatu and where either of the above conditions is satisfied, the business must register for VAT.
The VAT Office confirms that apart from the administrative penalties (Additional taxes for non – compliance) where necessary Section 51 (1) (a) of the VAT Act No. 12 of 1998 [CAP. 247] will also be considered.
An offence is committed under section 51(1) (a), where a person fails to apply for VAT registration in accordance with section 12. This offence is committed regardless of whether or not the person was aware of their liability to register under section 12.
On first occasion, on which a person is convicted of any fine such offence (or offences) the person becomes liable to a fine up to vt100, 000 vatu. Upon second conviction, the fine is increase to 200,000 vatu and/or on subsequent conviction will proceed with prosecution actions.
For more information on any of our articles published in our weekly column, please contact the Taxpayer Services Office by phone: 00678 24573 or email us at
