IRS develops software for tax returns

Management of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in collaboration with the Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) has developed computer software to help taxpayers in prompt submission of their returns.

Ms Vivien Adusei, Assistant Commissioner of IRS in charge of the Planning Division of the Service, said on Thursday that with the introduction of the software, christened IRS Tax Helper Software, the use of wrong tax rate to calculate returns as well as delays in submission of the returns would be eliminated.

She was speaking at a workshop in Accra organized for stakeholders to build their capacity on the functions and use of the software.

Ms Adusei said the IRS has especially targeted medium and small enterprises which did not have and could not afford the services of the bigger financial setups in order to handle their own tax-related issues.

She said the roll-out of the software would be next month and would be distributed free of charge to medium and small enterprises.

Ms Adusei said the software, was user friendly, had security features to clamp down on activities of saboteurs who might want to take undue advantage of its features to defraud.

Mr Patrick Danso, Assistant Inspector of Taxes, IRS, said functions of the software included registering and updating data on all employees of a company, automatic calculation of five per cent of Social Security deductions and the granting of tax relief.

"The IRS Tax Helper software also prepares Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax rates and monthly returns and these can easily be exported to Microsoft Excel as soft copy from the IRS website or any of their offices and inserted into the application on your computer," he said.

Mr Danso expressed the hope that the software would help eliminate challenges posed as a result of unqualified personnel that misapplied the rules in the PAYE calculations.