GRA reminds business owners not to operate without authorisation
Mr Edward Gyamerah, Assistant Commissioner of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), has reminded the public that one cannot operate a business without registering it with the Commissioner General.
“If you fail to register, you are not complying with the law, and enforcement measures could be applied against you,” he said.
Mr Gyamerah said this at the Ghana Tax Justice Coalition stakeholders tax forum held in Accra on Tuesday.
It was under the theme: “Ghana’s Tax Policy Environment: What Direction, Successes and Challenges?”
Touching further on taxation in the country, he said a number of factors made it difficult to enforce the country’s taxation laws.
“Delays in the prosecution of tax offenders, difficulty in accessing locations of illegal businesses, and other challenges make enforcement quite challenging.”
Mr Gyamerah said some solutions to the problem were the establishment of a tax court, the intensification of education on taxation, and immense collaboration between tax collection agencies within the country.
Mr Yakubu Seidu, Chief Revenue Officer at the Customs Division of the GRA, said: “It is unfortunate that whilst we want provision of hospitals, roads and other modern amenities, some of us still want to avoid paying our taxes.”
He said taxation formed quite a bulk of government revenue and added that it was thus very important to ensure that all taxation outlets were fully utilized.
“I urge all Ghanaians not to connive with smugglers to deny the country its due.”
Mr Seidu cautioned importers that it was not possible for anyone at the ports to divert their goods in order to help them evade tax.
He said “The law makes it mandatory for all carriers to declare all goods on board. We would definitely trace and locate your goods because by the time the diversion is done, we know about their existence already.”
Mr Sulemana Koney, a director at the Ghana Chamber of Mines, said one key means of broadening the tax net was to formalize all forms of mining in order to have those mining activities taxed.
He said the importance was seen clearly when note was taken of the fact that 80 to 90 percent of small scale mining was from the illegal mining industry.
Source: GNA