{"id":7330,"date":"2025-07-20T02:06:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T02:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/7330\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T02:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T02:06:23","slug":"lower-vat-and-wage-increases-to-drive-spending-fbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/7330\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower VAT and wage increases to drive spending \u2013 FBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The government is confident that planned tax cuts and wage increases will boost household spending and help support national revenue in the 2025\/26 financial year.<\/p>\n

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad says despite a slight drop in tax collections, the total revenue is projected at $3.95 billion.<\/p>\n

From August 1, VAT will be reduced from 15 percent to 12.5 percent, and civil servants will also receive salary increases.<\/p>\n

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While tax revenue is expected to fall slightly due to the VAT reduction, the finance minister says the broader economy will benefit from these measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad we retained the existing VAT and tax structure, our tax revenues would have increased by an estimated $180\u2013$200 million, solely due to economic growth. This clearly illustrates that the decline is not due to weak economic performance but rather due to conscious, pro-people policy reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Prasad says the government also expects a record $1.4 billion in remittances next year, which will give families even more spending power.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemittance inflows are projected to reach a record $1.4 billion in 2025, further strengthening household spending power. Mr. Speaker, Sir, while tax revenues may dip slightly, this will be offset by a strong increase in non-tax revenues, which are projected to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel says the budget reflects the government\u2019s ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility.<\/p>\n

While we project a fiscal deficit of 6 percent of GDP, this is carefully calibrated in response to current economic and social pressures and designed to provide targeted support to families, protect essential services, and drive infrastructure growth.<\/p>\n

Non-tax revenue is expected to rise by $57.6 million. This includes more from fees, fines, and charges, as well as cash grants from development partners and dividends from state-owned enterprises and the Reserve Bank of Fiji.<\/p>\n

The budget was passed this week.<\/p>\n

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Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government is confident that planned tax cuts and wage increases will boost household spending and help support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-7330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}