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General News of Friday, 9 March 2001

Source: GNA

Review Of Tax System

The Ghana Government has put in place measures to review the tax system in the country to bring about greater efficiency in collection, plug loopholes in the system and reduce revenue losses through evasion, avoidance and corruption on the part of revenue officials. To achieve these objectives, the government plans to enforce laws on collection of fees and charges and payment of such charges into the consolidated fund which, has been overlooked in the past.

Government also plans to widen tax base by reducing the VAT threshold from 200 million cedis to 100 million cedis for retailers of goods except retailers of pharmaceutical products, which shall remain exempt.

In addition to this, the government plans to take steps that will provide logistics to the Internal Revenue Service, to enable them deepen the tax coverage, particularly in the urban centres so as to rope in landlords, artisans and traders, some of whom have not been paying taxes on incomes as required by law.

Government also plans to establish Tax Courts to expedite action on tax related cases through the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Service. These courts would be established in every region.