The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as at December 2020 collected total revenue of GH₵ 45,338.69 billion exceeding the budget by GH₵ 2,569.19 billion with a positive deviation of 6.0%. This performance represents a nominal growth rate of 3.3% over the performance in 2019.
Ghana Revenue Authority was initially budgeted to collect total tax revenue of GH₵ 47,253.95 billion for the 2020 fiscal year. This represented 7.6% growth over the actual tax revenue collection of GH₵43,907.12 billion for the 2019 fiscal year.
However, as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the budget was revised downward to GH₵42,769.50 billion. This represents 2.6% negative growth over the actual revenue collections of GH₵ 43,907.12 billion in 2019.
In 2020, domestic revenue grew by a nominal rate of 2.8% while customs collection grew by 4.5%. This is no mean achievement considering that we are not in normal times.
Mr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, the Commissioner-General, addressing the opening session of the authority’s 2021 management retreat in Koforidua attributed the success story to the massive debt collection exercises embarked on by the GRA and staff hard work and commitment.
Mr Owusu Amoah reinforced the GRA’s determination to continue to undertake a strong digitization drive as part of its transformational agenda, stressing that in line with this vision, the authority in collaboration with the National Identification Authority (NIA), and other relevant stakeholders have commenced the implementation of the use of the Ghana Card Personal Identification Number as the Taxpayer Identification Number for the individual taxpayers.
He said taxpayers will therefore be required to use the Ghana Card Identity Number for tax purposes and transactions. This replacement of Identification will enable the authority to share important data and also help identify and rope in eligible taxpayers, especially in the informal sector.
He said, the authority has introduced new excise tax stamps, according to him, from the 1st of January, 2021 they introduced a new excise tax stamps with enhanced security features that are difficult to duplicate.
Mr Owusu Amoah added that there will be rigorous efforts to tax players in the E-commerce market. He said the sector has been a challenge over the years for the authority, but this year, they are providing staff with the requisite training to enable them to identify players in the sector for tax purposes.
He said the authority will also enhance debt collection and prosecutions. The authority will embark on an intensive debt collection drive and prosecution of tax defaulters. The authority is working on beefing up the capacity in the area of prosecution.
He assured all that, the authority will undertake increase tax education exercises to help inform taxpayers on their right and obligations, processes and procedures, among others, all aimed at ensuring voluntary tax compliance.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Evans Boateng
