The Commissioner General of the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC), Mr. Sam Koim is not happy with the 2024 National Budget that was presented by the government to parliament this week in Port Moresby, because it did not include some of IRC’s legislative proposals. Speaking to tax agents at the opening of the annual Tax Agent Liaison Group Meeting on Wednesday in the city of Port Moresby, Mr. Koim said the proposals for legislatives for the improvement of tax administration in collecting tax revenue, was not taken into the budget for next year. “The budget was disappointing, I have to say,” said the Commissioner General. “I was disappointed in the sense that all the legislative proposals that we have been pushing to help us set up the foundation for some of the changes that we are doing to introduce some of the administrative reliefs that we have been seeking, have not been pushed through.” Mr. Koim said the record K27.3 billion National Budget for 2024 was much on the back of increased tax collection, mostly through administrative interventions done by the IRC. “It takes two or couple of interventions, one is the general growth of the economy, but the tax administration must have the capacity to extract a certain portion of that growth through tax administration,” explained Mr. Koim. He went to say that the IRC is doing its best to collect tax and thanks the taxpayers as well for their compliance in filing tax on time, helping the IRC do its task of collecting tax revenue for the State, but the exclusion of the proposed legislative changes is a slap in the face of the IRC. “We are receiving less help from where the tax policy resides, the responsibility of tax policy.” The proposed legislatives were supposed to enable further ease in the collection of tax revenue in 2024 onwards; however, with their exclusion, things will be a bit tough going forward for the state institution. Nevertheless, the Commissioner General said that the IRC will continue its mandated responsibility to assist in funding yet another record budget in the coming year, though challenging. “We will have a lot of challenge in pushing our way to create a revenue like we’ve done,” Mr. Koim plainly stated.