Mobile Tax App Goes Into Effect October

VICE PRESIDENT Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the Ministry of Finance and the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), in collaboration with the Economic Management Team, have initiated work on a mobile application for the filing of taxes.

According to him, this is aimed at making tax compliance and enforcement easier, and increasing the contribution of domestic revenue to Ghana’s GDP.

“I am happy to announce that the mobile application for the simplified filing of taxes should be ready by end of October this year. The idea is to have a mobile app where an individual or enterprise will have to input just a few pieces of information and tax due will be automatically calculated for you and you can pay on your phone and receive a receipt immediately.”

Dr. Bawumia disclosed this on Wednesday at the launch of the Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement (RACE) Initiative, designed to increase domestic revenue mobilisation to address the economic challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and make Ghana more fiscally independent.

A recent study by the World Bank (November 2020) has shed more light on the startling gap between what is due to the public purse and what is collected, with the total corporate tax gap equivalent to between 9.4 per cent and 12.6 per cent of GDP (approximately between Gh¢35.7billion – Gh¢47.88billion); VAT compliance gap of 39.3 per cent of total VAT revenue; Import duty tax gap of 32.5 per cent of tax revenue; and potential tax revenues from sole proprietors, who usually operate in the informal sector, amounting to 12.6 per cent of GDP.





Dr. Bawumia further said “We need to remind ourselves that Government’s ability to extend much-needed support to Ghanaians during this pandemic owes a lot to the prudent management of the economy in the three years leading to the pandemic. And government’s ability to continue with some of the social interventions and much-needed support to the private sector depends on our ability to accelerate our domestic revenue mobilisation.

“The unfortunate reality is that our progress in domestic revenue mobilisation could be better than what we have now. The reasons: the commitment to paying taxes is low. Some tax laws are complex and do not encourage compliance. There is also a school of thought that those who must enforce compliance are not without blame. Our challenges are in enforcement and compliance.”

Government, he stressed, will continue to take proactive measures to broaden the tax base and make it easier for individuals and businesses to fulfil their obligations without major stress.

“We have addressed the issue of the narrow tax base by making the Ghanacard number the TIN. This has increased the percentage of the adult population with a TIN from 4% in 2016 to 86% today. The question that we have is how to convert this 86% into actual taxpayers,” he added.

Source:dailyguidenetwork.com