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Business news for Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Source: GNA
2020-12-30
He said Ghana collected less taxes and relied mainly on foreign aid.
Approximately 1.5 million of Ghana’s six million eligible taxpayers pay taxes, giving Ghana one of the lowest rates of gross domestic product (GDP) tax in Africa.
Thus, Ghana has a lot to do to meet the sub-Saharan average target of 17 percent, which is above the nation’s 13 percent, as its various governments over the years have tried to improve.
These were revealed to the media in Accra by Mr. John Okyere, a tax consultant and entrepreneur, during an outreach meeting on promoting fairness in tax incentives / exemptions based on the results of a double investigation conducted by the Anti-Corruption Coalition Ghana (GACC).
He said that Ghana collected less taxes and relied mainly on foreign aid; International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Bond and others, but they lost huge amounts to leakage.
Okyere said Ghana lost $ 10 billion in tax breaks in the past two years, stating that more funds needed to be mobilized through Household Income Mobilization (DRM).
Bernard Anaba, a policy analyst at ISODEC, said that without taxes, governments would not be able to plan and implement policies adequately, adding that citizens must be involved in the collection and spending of taxes as they play an important role in the national development.
Mr. Geoffrey Kabutey Ocancy, Executive Director of Revenue Mobilization Africa, said citizens should be educated on the relevance of paying taxes, noting that it would encourage voluntary compliance.
He said that tax education should be introduced into the curriculum from primary to tertiary education to improve people’s understanding of the tax system.
There should also be a proper update on the location, ownership and type of use of the property in order to collect the appropriate property fees from the assemblies to develop the country, he suggested.
Ocancy said that to increase tax collection, the tax network must be expanded, collectors trained and the Tax Exemption Bill passed to regulate the exception regime effectively and efficiently.
Free zone operations, Ocancy said, should also be regulated to improve the tax system.
Madame Beauty Nartey, GACC Executive Secretary, called on the government to establish structures to capture businesses online for taxes.
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