Government has been urged to complement the expected establishment of a tax court with other reforms to ensure the many tax issues the country continues to deal with, are addressed.
The Chief Justice, His Lordship Kwasi Anin Yeboah in a letter to the Ghana Bar Association on Friday, revealed that the Judicial Service is preparing to establish a special tax court to deal with the prosecutions of tax cases.
Commenting on the new outfit, a tax specialist at Oxfam Ghana, Dr. Alex Ampaabeng tells Citi Business News, significant improvement in public education on tax issues, a reduction in tax exemptions as well as other steps are needed to see an overall improvement in the country’s domestic non-oil tax revenue.
“The tax court is one positive step and there are other enablers which I believe should be present if the court is to work the way we want. One of them is that issues surrounding whistleblowing should be taken care of, with leads provided and being explored with all seriousness. Also, tax knowledge is very weak in the country, so going forward the GRA and the government must ensure that on improving on the level of tax knowledge is given the same level of importance as the establishment of the court.”
“Another key point is the issue of growing tax exemptions which needs to be looked at seriously. Tax exemptions currently amount to over GHS 5 billion. So we need to review and decide which exemptions to keep and which ones we need to get rid of. Other avenues we need to consider for revenue generation is property taxation,” he added.