Tax collection is being improved to ensure that domestic revenue mobilisation is improved. In fact, domestic revenue mobilisation is key to the agenda of a ‘Ghana beyond aid’. Thus, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has stepped up its tax collection role and is introducing new measures such as the tax stamp to rope-in more taxes from the country’s large informal economy.
To this end, the GRA is creating a mining list which is to be reviewed annually to improve revenue collection. According to the country’s Mineral and Mining Act (2006), Act 703, exemption of selected items from Customs duty for mining companies is captured in the mining list.
This list will ensure instances when items on the list have dual usages, they are captured adequately to create certainty in the minds of the industry and the GRA. The Commissioner-General believes such reviews will bring to the GRA the reality of the items’ usage, and we believe this is necessary to ensure that no discrepancy arises as a result of their status.
On the whole the GRA is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to meet its revenue targets, and that is highly commendable since it means more revenue to undertake critical development programmes without having to go to the international capital market looking for funds.
As indicated by the IMF and other multilateral institutions, the country’s debt level is growing and will soon be unsustainable if measures are not put in place to improve domestic revenue mobilisation. Thus, we at B&FT support all strategies to improve domestic revenue mobilisation so that we can bridge the infrastructure gap that is currently existing.
Roads have to be built, maintained and extended. Hospitals need to be built and equipped to ensure better health for the citizenry, and the current free SHS policy has to be sustained – and all these depend on funds for execution.
Now that we are all purposed to look within to fund our development, we cannot achieve this without improving tax collection and spreading the net to capture the large informal economy we operate. Therefore, we support moves to incorporate able Ghanaians into the tax system so they can honour their tax obligations.
