By Wisdom JONNY-NUEKPE
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is seeking to improve on its tax indicators in order to advance tax revenue mobilisation.
Ag. Commissioner General-GRA Anthony Kwasi Sarpong said the Authority will deploy mechanisms and best practices to improve tax rates, tax bases, tax structure, revenue performance, tax administration, including service and compliance.
The GRA boss was speaking at the 2024 African Tax Administration Forum’s (ATAF) African Tax Outlook (ATO) Validation Workshop in Accra.
The indicators, he said, are also crucial to African revenue authorities as they implement reforms and policies to broaden the tax base, narrow tax gaps and simplify and improve fairness in tax systems.
According to him, the above indicators improve overall voluntary compliance and keep policymakers informed on tax matters.
With over 30 countries in Africa participating in the workshop, Mr. Sarpong said the ATO Publication serves as a platform to compare tax indicators of the various participating countries and gauge continental performance of taxation among African revenue authorities.
“I take this opportunity to advise participants to use the workshop for learning more about the data collection processes and ATAF data collection portal, so as to improve the quality of data they collect. This will go a long way to affect the publication’s quality,” he said.
The GRA boss said the workshop presents a great opportunity for participating tax administrations to frankly share experiences while expanding their network with other countries on tax related issues.
“Let’s keep on with the network we have established since inception of the ATO publication. Now more than ever, tax administrators need to leverage on every opportunity we have to share ideas on best industry practice to improve on our work of revenue mobilisation,” he concluded.
VAT penetration levels and revenue collection
In the 2024 revenue collection year GRA surpassed its target by collecting GH¢153.5billion, a 5.3 percent increase over the projected GH¢145.9billion.
Key drivers of this performance, the Authority said, were robust growth in domestic revenue (31.6 percent) and Customs (47 percent) exceeding expectations across several tax handles. Notably, corporate tax collections reached GH¢38billion – surpassing the GH¢30billion target.
However, some tax objectives remain major hurdles as GRA is continually confronted with the age-old challenge of low VAT penetration and performance.
Ghana’s VAT collection and percentage of penetration, according to GRA, is positioned below 20 percent – compared to Benin which has a penetration of over 40 percent; Cote d’Ivoire, 32 percent; Niger, 29 percent; Senegal, 33 percent; Sierra Leone, 25 percent; and Togo, 43 percent.
About the ATAF–ATO Publication
The main purpose of the ATO is to establish an African flagship publication, aiming to be a source of reliable information on taxation that will serve as an African and global reference and an important barometer for businesses; in other words, creating a reference manual mainly for African tax administrations, tax policymakers, tax practitioners and businesses.
