The Ghana Revenue Authority has stated that it will intensify education to increase tax collection from the informal sector.
The informal sector constitutes 70 per cent of the economy but just two per cent of them pay their taxes.
The authority also revealed that their latest checks on tax payment showed that only 1.5 million of the expected six million taxpayers honored their responsibilities, with 200,000 being from the informal sector.
Collection of taxes from people within the informal sector has remained one of the biggest challenges for the Ghana Revenue Authority.
To this end, the tax collectors have over the years initiated various programs to encourage individuals such as traders and commercial drivers to fulfill their civil obligations, but that has not yielded much results.
Although the informal sector contributes about 70 percent to the country’s GDP, this is still far beyond its potential when it comes to revenue generation.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Assistant Commissioner for Communications and Public Affairs at the GRA, Kwesi Bobbie Ansah said the GRA will continue with its campaign on the Tax Identification Number to increase awareness among the informal sector.
“Despite all the education we have done on the TIN to create awareness and grow the tax base, I believe more work has to be done on it and that is exactly what we are going to do this year”.
And for those who fail to file their taxes they will be sanctioned which includes “prosecution”.
Meanwhile Maame Attah who is a seamstress and part of the informal sector said workers like herself will be encouraged to pay their taxes if they see a correlating response of development in the country.
“We do pay our taxes but we are not seeing the wanted results. With the taxes we pay we expect good roads, for example the road in my vicinity is in bad shape. We also expect to see that there is good sanitation but we see very little of that”.
Another informal sector worker who is a taxi driver in an interview with Citi Business News, said he believes it is crucial that informal sector workers pay taxes.
“I have seen some development with the taxes we pay , for example government’s free SHS policy, which my nieces and nephews are benefitting from, so it is good that we all pay taxes”.
The GRA last year enforced the Tax Identification Number (TIN) to grow the tax net of the country.
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