PALIKIR, POHNPEI. April 12, 2013 – The Fifth Special Session of the Seventeenth Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia is scheduled to convene on April 15 2013, in Palikir at 10am in the Congress Chamber to address a looming deadline in the tax Act of 2012.
Speaker Isaac V. Figir had called for a Special Session at the end of April to address matters pending before the 17th Congress, but President Manny Mori’s letter of April 5th called for an additional session to specifically address the sunset clause of April 19th in the Revenue Administration Act (RAA) of 2012.
The RAA is as part of a nation-wide tax reform effort that the five governments began in 2005 and resulted in the Public Law 16-75 that created in 2011 the Unified Revenue Authority (URA) central or the unit to collect both national and state taxes.
Following the creation of the URA, PL 17-50 established the RAA to categorize the administrative rules that will guide the URA mandate of tax collection. The URA’s mandate is pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement between the five governments and the laws to be enacted by each government to endorse the agreement.
According to Public Law No. 17-50, “If any of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia have not passed into law value added tax legislation as of midnight April 19, 2013, this act is null and void.”
President Mori’s Call is to foremost, repeal the sunset clause of April 19, 2013, in the RAA since two states have yet to enact corresponding tax laws. The other item on his Call is for the establishment of a revolving fund for federal funds.
The Fifth Special Session as called will convene in Palikir at 10am on Monday, April 15, 2013.
Speaker Figir’s Call for session remains scheduled for April 29, 2013, to address those congressional measures still pending before the Body that would ‘expire’ with the completion of the Seventeenth Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia on May 10, 2013.
The sessions of the Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia are open to the interested general public.