We must collect more taxes

We must collect more taxes

The development needs of each country require that sufficient funds be collected to ensure adequate funding of state infrastructure for the comfort of citizens.

Given the large overall funding requirements for sustainable development, States are using various means to raise funds to finance their activities.

The mobilization of national public resources comes mainly from national tax systems, mainly income and import taxes, which state institutions are responsible for recovering each year. In the least developed countries, for example, the possibilities for mobilizing domestic resources are limited.

As the foundation of each country, tax collection has been improved in many countries. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, the measures put in place have not been sufficient to mobilize sufficient national funds to meet their needs, forcing them to borrow.

In Ghana, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and its various agencies have, over the years, led the revenue collection and contributed significantly to securing funds that allowed the state to fund its projects and programs.

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Therefore, whenever the GRA is unable to reach its goal, the country must find other ways to finance some of its projects. For this reason, the Daily Graphic notes with satisfaction that the North and Ashanti sectors of the GRA Customs Division have exceeded their revenue targets for 2018.

During a conversation with reporters in Tamale and Kumasi, officials revealed that while the northern sector had exceeded its target by more than Ashanti had exceeded its target of last year by more than 12%.

This undoubtedly contributed to the 3.9% increase in GRA's import receipts at the end of the 2018 calendar year, which rose from about 12 , GH ¢ 7 billion in 2017 to GH ¢ 13.2 billion at the end of 2018.

The Daily Graphic congratulates GRA for its success. We believe that the Northern and Kumasi achievements have been achieved through hard work and action by these sectors, and we urge them to share their success stories and the way they are working. have been done with other sectors, so that they can be replicated in other areas so that they also get more government revenue for their programs.

We note Ghana's current status as a lower-middle-income country, which gives us much more responsibility to generate enough revenue for our development projects. But we still have not been able to generate enough, despite our attempts at tax reforms.

The Daily Graphic urges the government to do everything in its power to broaden the tax net for those who earn income but do not contribute much to the national effort.

Most of the time, formal sector employees have borne the burden of paying income tax because, whether allowed or left, taxes are deducted before their monthly emoluments reach their account.

We are pleased to note the decision of the Kumasi Command to begin night service starting next month to track people who engage in economic activities to pay taxes.

We believe that one way to broaden the tax net is to work for a cashless economy where payments will be made with various credit cards. We believe that with the introduction of the national identity card, we will be able to move gradually to a time when purchases and transactions can be traced to allow the payment of necessary taxes.

The GRA can also effectively use traders' badociations to collect more taxes from companies.

This will help the country to embark on more development projects and programs with unconditional and unconditional funding.

It is only through this that we can develop freely.