GRA develops a platform for the practical payment of taxes

Company News from Thursday, April 11, 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2019-04-11

Mr. Mark-Donald Pwawari, Director of the Small Taxpayers' Office of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in Bolgatanga, announced that the Integrated Tax Preparation and Preparation System (iTaPS) was a convenient system for taxpayers to pay their taxes.

Pwawari said the application would allow taxpayers to easily file their personal tax returns in the comfort of their homes and offices. He also proposed nine iTaPS models, which will be progressively deployed.

Mr. Pwawari made the announcement at the launch of Tax and Good Governance Week in Bolgatanga and indicated that the nine models included annual tax returns, tax clearance, certificate of withholding tax credit, the withholding tax credit certificate and the commercial document manager.

The rest consists of PAYE monthly and annual returns, decision support systems for personal tax relief for self-badessment estimates, among others.

Mr Pwawari suggested that apart from the measure to promote tax payment, the GRA has also developed an electronic payment platform through which operators in the informal sector, particularly Commercial transport operators and small-scale self-employed workers paying their quarterly taxes, would pay their quarterly taxes. mobile money in collaboration with the banks.

He said these initiatives were part of the GRA's digitization process to leverage technology to improve tax administration and promote good governance in order to effectively shape the socio-economic life of citizens.

The official said that even though the GRA had not been able to meet the targets set the previous year, it had committed to make a difference in the revenue target of 2019 and warned that the GRA would apply full penalties taxpayers who fail to pay their annual tax. return to the scheduled dates.

Mr. Baffour Yaw Asare, General Revenue Officer and Commander of GRA Customs Division in the Far East region, stressed that the filing of annual tax returns and the payment of taxes were only not a question of choice but constituted statutory and constitutional requirements.

He explained that it was a legal provision because it complied with Article 124 (1) of Law No. 896 of 2015 on the tax on income, according to which "a person must file with the Commissioner-General no later than four months after the end of each year and an income tax return for the year", he added.

Mr. Asare pointed out that the filing of annual tax returns is also a requirement set out in the 1992 Constitution and added that "under the terms of the citizen's obligations set out in section 41, it is stated that". exercise and enjoyment of rights and freedoms are inseparable from the fulfillment of its duties and obligations, each citizen has the duty, inter alia, to declare his honesty to the appropriate and legal services and to discharge all his duties and obligations. its tax obligations ".