Players in the online-real estate retail space believe their platforms can help the government’s ability to tax property owners.
The government through the various Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies has over the years had a major challenge with efficiently collecting property taxes from various property owners across the country.
This has had a negative effect on the country’s revenue.
Among the many reasons for this situation is the lack of adequate data on the number, locations, and value of a lot of properties.
Setbacks like these have led the government to work on introducing the electronic transfer levy to help in its revenue mobilization agenda, especially with a large part of the informal sector not actively paying taxes.
Online real estate company, Meqasa, believes that the situation with the government can be improved by leveraging on data from its outfit.
CEO of Meqasa, Kelvin Nyame stated that “first of all we need to identify every property and the government doesn’t need to stress itself by hiring a lot of people walking around for that because Meqasa has that database. We have over 70,000 properties listed on the platform.”
Beyond access to data, Mr Nyame stated that the government ought to introduce regulations that would mandate asset owners to pay property rates before they are allowed to enlist their buildings on the retail platform.
He argues that it will give property owners enough motivation to fulfil all their financial obligations to the state.
“This puts a lot of pressure on the investor because he has the property but can’t give it out to the tenant and make revenue because you are now forced to pay property tax before you can advertise and make money.”
“Then quickly, you’d want to get that out of the way. What this does is that any online platform that wants to advertise property for any landlord must make sure they go through this system”.
He further added that this would create a platform that makes it convenient for property owners to pay their taxes.
He spoke to Citi Business News on the sidelines of the launch of his company’s home and property fair.
Commenting on the event, Mr Nyame stated that “The fair promises to bring together hundreds of property seekers, developers, agents and ancillary service providers. “Attendees can expect nothing but amazing property deals with great discount opportunities you cannot afford to miss!”
The Meqasa Home and Property Fair, as always, promises to be an excellent networking avenue while presenting the public with a wide array of exclusive discounts on properties from top tier developers such as Goldkey Properties Ltd, Vaal Real Estate Ghana, Swami India Ghana Ltd and many others.
As a third time sponsor of the event, Ms Fusseina Abu, Managing Director of Goldkey Properties LTD said “Goldkey Properties is excited to be the lead sponsor for this year’s Meqasa fair. We look forward to offering exciting deals and giveaways in commemoration of our 25th anniversary.”
There shall also be seminars from industry thought leaders; home financing packages from financial service providers, as well as investment specialists.