Submarines and Survivors: Issues in the taxation of informal enterprises, 2015

Enterprises in the informal economy in PNG can be classed as either Submarines or Survivors. ‘Submarines’ should probably be paying tax, but have the ability to submerge when they want to escape the attention of taxation or labour authorities. ‘Survivors’ are micro-enterprises, the ‘survival’ enterprises of the poor. Taxation and labour authorities should leave them alone to get on with the business of sustaining low-income people.