The Ghana Revenue Authority attaining help from the Finance Ministry has declared that they will soon name and shame, and also prosecute tax escapist mostly those in the informal sector.
With this happening, the Authority has launched the second National Tax Campaign to see to it that voluntary tax payments, especially from the informal sector.
Currently, the informal sector contributes only two percent of taxes paid in the country.
Although six million people have been captured in the tax net, only 1.5 million people pay taxes regularly mostly from the formal sector.
Launching the 2018 National Tax campaign, Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei Asare charged the GRA to adopt stringent measures to broaden the tax net.
“We must all acknowledge the positive contributions of the informal sector to the GDP, So let us ask ourselves, what are we not doing right? We must do everything possible to change this situation for development and also move Ghana beyond aid,” she said.
The informal sector constitutes about 70 percent of the economy, The Deputy Minister tasked the GRA to ease processes for tax payments.
“For GRA, in as much as we encourage the informal sector to contribute their quota to national development, how are you also making payment of taxes easier?” she asked.
She urged the Authority to remove all the barriers and improve the ease of paying taxes by citizens.
On his part, Commissioner-General of the GRA, Emmanuel Kofi Nti said his outfit will collaborate with other institutions to ensure the campaign yields maximum results.
“GRA believes in sustaining and educating the public in tax issues but especially informal sector operators so that together, we will be contributing towards national development agenda.”
The six months campaign is on the theme, “Our Taxes, Our Future”. The GRA has been tasked to collect in excess of 32 billion cedis by the end of 2018.
