Substituting TIN with Ghana Card won't suddenly rope in revenue - Tax Analyst

Francis Timore Boi, a tax analyst has stated that the replacement of the Tax Identification Number (TIN) with the Ghana Card number for tax identification purposes by the Ghana Revenue Authority will not yield any proper results with regards to economic growth.

He said more needed to be done to ensure that taxpayers pay their taxes after being identified as eligible taxpayers.

According to Timore Boi, increasing tax revenues will depend on how effectively the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) take advantage of the development of the resources.

“We have to remind ourselves that the fact that someone has a national card doesn’t mean automatically the person will begin to walk to the GRA office and say they want to pay their tax. The first step in the revenue enhancement is to be able to identify all the eligible taxpayers,” he said.

He noted that individuals who do not pay their taxes must be sanctioned and ensure that they pay their taxes.

“We already have a system in place with a penalty which attempts to sanction people who fail to register for taxes but for some reason, we have been applying it to only companies but for individuals, we have neglected it for a very long time. The purpose is to rope in a lot of informal people, and so we hope that this will be able to bring a lot of people into the tax net,” he said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the state of the Nation Address announced a replacement of the TIN with the Ghana card number as part of efforts to identify and rope in more eligible taxpayers to mobile revenue for the growth of the country's economy.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority says registration officials of the National Identification Authority (NIA) are currently stationed at 14 GRA offices across the country to register individuals who do not possess a Ghana card.

They include the Registrar General’s Department at Accra, Taxpayer Service Center at Adabraka – Accra, Taxpayer Service Center at Asokwa in Kumasi, Taxpayer Service Center at Wa and Taxpayer Service Center at Cape Coast.

63 other GRA locations across the country will also start serving all taxpayers soon as GRA has set aside a transition period from April 1st, 2021 to December 31st, 2021 where both the TIN and Ghana Card PIN may be used simultaneously as the unique number for tax identification purposes.

The GRA also said an online portal has also been created on the GRA website for existing taxpayers who have registered and have been issued with the Ghana card to link their Ghana card PIN to their TIN.

Any taxpayer with a Ghana card is expected to present it at any GRA office to be registered as a taxpayer.

This process started on April 1, 2021, and is expected to see the country’s domestic revenues increase by the fourth quarter of the 2021 fiscal year.