The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, (GIPC) Yofi Grant has stated that government will use the mid-year budget presentation to block leakages in the tax system to help improve domestic revenue collection for the country.
According to him, government is not interested in introducing new taxes to further burden the tax payer but rather, will ensure all leakages in the tax systems are blocked.
He maintained that it is imperative for government to take such measures since the ratio of domestic revenue to GDP is still below what is required for a middle income country like Ghana.
“Our tax to GDP is about 16% and ideally, it should be in the region. If you look at our peers, it’s of around 25% or more. So we need to pay a lot more attention to where the leakages are, and why we are not collecting. Currently, if you look at our tax regime that means a few of the minority are paying the larger proportion of taxes” he said.
Finance minister Ken Ofori Atta had earlier in the year stated that the midyear budget review may introduce new measures for taxes to increase revenue.
Mr. Grant said his outfit will work with the Ministry of Finance to deploy various technological means to make it difficult for businesses and investors to take advantage of system leakages.
“There are many people who are not captured under the tax bracket. So government needs to bring them in and I suspect that technology will be a key platform to enable that” he explained.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana