GRA Should Collaborate More With NCCE

The Ahanta West Municipal Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Mr Moses Kojo Baffoe has called for a strong collaboration between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Commission to carry on tax education.

He noted that many people especially in the rural areas did not understand why they should pay taxes and attributed the situation to the lack of public education on the need to pay taxes and what the taxes were used for.

Mr Baffoe who made the call during a tax education exercise organised by the NCCE in collaboration with the GRA at Agona Nkwanta in the Western region, asked the GRA to release some of their vehicles to the commission to embark on the educational campaigns since the commission was woefully resourced in terms of mobility.

The exercise which is the second phase of engagement on Tax compliance in the Agona West Municipality is on the theme 'Tax Compliance, Our Taxes, and our Future'.

The Municipal NCCE Director also stressed the need for the GRA to establish revenue collection points and offices in the various districts and rural communities to enable tax payers meet their tax obligations.

According to him many people in rural communities found it difficult to travel to the regional capital to pay their taxes, hence the need to setup revenue collection points at the local level.

Mr Baffoe said it was also important for the GRA to engage more hands in the collection of revenue, stressing that only 15 percent of Ghanaians in the formal sector paid taxes against the remaining 85 percent did not pay because they are mostly in the informal sector.

He noted that there was still the need for the public to be educated on their tax obligations, stressing that ' our interactions with the public has revealed that people still do not understand why they should pay taxes and what the taxes they pay are used for.

Mr Baffoe said people were also not conversant with the new taxes introduced especially the Tax Stamp and so did not understand why they should pay such taxes and therefore stated that the needed education should be given on the new taxes.

He said the Tax Compliance exercise also revealed that people did not know the difference between the basic rates collected by the District Assemblies and taxes by the Ghana Revenue Authority.

The Municipal NCCE Director urged businesses to do their best and pay their taxes since it was their civic duty and a constitutional requirement to pay taxes regularly to the GRA.

Mr Baffoe told the participants that the importance of paying taxes cannot be overemphasised since the revenue was used for development purposes, such as the provision of basic social amenities, including electricity, health facilities, schools, roads and potable water.

The Tax Compliance education programme was taken to churches, mosque, Hairdressers and Beauticians, market women, dressmakers and tailors as well as a number of deprived communities.

GNA
By Justina Paaga, GNA