ACEP unveils digital platform to encourage tax compliance

The Africa Centre for Energy Policy has introduced a new digital platform to help encourage tax compliance among the citizenry.

Dubbed: “Opentaxghana,” the platform seeks to promote voluntary compliance on the part of the public by providing tax education and tax law enforcement through the cooperation of the citizenry.

The new platform was designed in partnership with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), and supported by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), to help increase domestic tax revenue.

The Executive Director of the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Mr Benjamin Boakye, at the launch in Accra, said it had become important for citizens to be fully engaged in supporting the laws and administrative processes that deal with the challenges of tax revenue mobilisation in the country.

He said through the platform, the gaps that allow tax evasion schemes to occur could be identified and addressed as it provided opportunity for the public to share experiences on practices that deprive the state of tax revenue.

Also, he stated that there was a whistle-blower section that enabled people to anonymously report tax evasion schemes.

He explained that the whistle-blower was already protected under the Whistle-blower Act, 2006 (Act 720) and would be rewarded with 10 per cent of tax revenues that the GRA would successfully recover following tax evasion reporting.

“The platform also improves transparency and accountability by providing information to citizens on government revenue trends and how these are utilised. The public can also determine their tax obligations with assistance from the platform.,” Mr Boakye said.

The executive director observed that the indication that tax to the gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was about 15.4 per cent in 2016 was an indication that Ghanaians were demanding more from the government than they contributed.

“ACEP believes that as the public engage with the platform to support the GRA in fighting the problem of tax evasion to increase tax revenue mobilisation, more resources will be made available to support the development Ghana needs.

This will enhance the legitimacy of the public to demand more accountability from government,” he added.

Collective approach

Mr Boakye said there was the need for the citizenry to adopt a collective approach to help encourage tax compliance in the country.

The approach, he said, should precede the creation of an improved domestic tax revenue mobilisation to reduce dependence on debts for development financing.

“Domestic revenue mobilisation through taxation is very weak, evidenced by tax evasion schemes across many sectors of the Ghanaian economy,” Mr Boakye said.

“For instance, according to the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the state lost an estimated GH¢850 million in revenue in 2016 as a result of illegal trade in petroleum products in the downstream petroleum sector.”

The executive director noted that there was a bigger challenge with the collection of tax from the country’s rather large informal sector which needed to be addressed immediately.

“About 1.2 million people are recognised taxpayers, out of which only 200,000 come from the informal sector. Addressing the challenges of tax revenue mobilisation, particularly from the informal sector, is the function of the state through the tax authorities.”

“However, the general public has a crucial role to play in this, particularly where the capacity of the state to detect complex tax evasion schemes is limited,” he said.

GRA to strengthen operations

A Senior Revenue Officer at the Communication and Public Affairs of GRA, Mrs Anita Naadu Anaba-Ania, lauding the initiative, said the platform had come at an opportune time where authority was taking steps to strengthen its operations in the country.

She said the authority had already launched national tax compliance campaign which was aimed at increasing voluntary tax compliance of tax obligations by the citizenry.

Going forward, she noted that the authority intended to intensify its campaign on tax compliance to help improve domestic tax revenue mobilisation to help develop the country.