The National Organiser of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Henry Nana Boakye, has described the system adopted by Ghana Revenue Authority to station offices at the business office as counterproductive, oppressive, repressive and suppressive.
GRA has stationed its officers at shops, restaurants and other businesses to record sales of products for tax puposes but the NPP National Organiser has labeled the approach as weak and lame.
He said ‘In this day of technology, GRA should adopt welcoming and pleasant ways of revenue collections strategy that engenders revenue assurance.
According to the GRA, a number of selected shops have deliberately failed to issue VAT invoices electronically when customers walk in to make purchases.
The GRA says the failure of these shops to abide by its directive sends signals that they are under-declaring tax.
Officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) on Tuesday shut down four branches of the Palace Mall. The affected branches are; Labone, Spintex, Atomic roundabout and Weija.
They were closed for non-compliance with the Authority’s E-VAT Invoicing system.
On Monday, GRA officials also shut down some branches of China Mall for non-compliance
But the NPP National Organiser in an article posted on Facebook thinks the approach is not in the best interest of everybody considering the current situation facing businesses.
Below is the full post:National Organiser of NPP, Henry Nana Boakye writes on GRA’s revenue mobilization
I have been following the activities of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in recent times in thier efforts to maximize revenue mobilization and I want to point out one major challenging revenue mobilization strategy employed by the authority in some parts of the country including Kumasi.
GRA has stationed its officers at shops, restaurants and other businesses to record sales of products for tax puposes.
Reports say traders in Adum, Kumasi have closed their shops in protest against this obnoxious move by GRA.
This strategy would have be justified only if it was targeted at businesses that ample evidence shows have been evading or under-declaring their taxes.
But in my candid opinion, this ‘wide-spread approach’ of stationing revenue officers at business is counterproductive, oppressive, repressive and suppressive.
We are not in normal times – businesses and individuals are bearing the brunt of the twin global crisis and their concomitant economic agony – and the least expected from GRA is to police traders whom no tax evasion findings have been made against.
In this day of technology, GRA should adopt welcoming and pleasant ways of revenue collections strategy that engenders revenue assurance.
This strategy is weak and lame since Revenue Officers stationed at these shops and businesses can be compromised to aid owners to evade or under-declare their taxes. GRA should rather strive to reduce human contact in revenue collection and employ technological solutions to take taxes from businesses.
Lastly, the communication department or Public Relations unit of GRA appears dead. Paying taxes is not a pleasant thing and for that matter, responsive PR approach must be adopted to educate the tax paying population of their programmes and activities.