The Papua New Guinea government and local level administrations have reached an agreement on how revenue from goods and services tax collected in the provinces should be split.
The Post Courier reports that provinces will receive 60 percent ot total GST tax collected and the national government the balance.
The Inter Government Relations Minister, Sir Peter Barter says the national government will use its 40 percent to top up provinces which would receive less than what they currently receive.
He says the new arrangements will be trialed for a year beginning January 1 2004 and then reviewed.
Recently the Morobe Provincial Governor, Luther Wenge and National government agreed on a 80:20 split.
But Sir Peter says that would leave seven of the 20 provinces financially worse off in 2004 compared with 2002.
In 2002, Mr Wenge won a legal battle against the government to declare PNG's Value Added Tax illegal.
Sir Peter says draft legislation replacing the VAT with GST will be soon be introduced into parliament.
