The Tema Community 9 Taxpayer Service Centre (TSC) of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in the Greater Accra Region has launched a campaign aimed at exceeding its target for 2025.
Consequently, staff of the office have intensified their campaign with a tour of institutions and other contributors to help achieve their objectives.
As part of the strategy, officers will step up their education and awareness campaign on compliance, follow it up with monitoring, as well as collection, all aimed at improving voluntary compliance and enhancing revenue collection in the final days of the year.
The Office Manager of the Tema Community 9 TSC, Lydia Owusu Banahene, in an interview with the Daily Graphic at the start of the campaign, said as the year drew to a close, the Community 9 TSC was keen to improve upon their efforts in the past months, to ensure that the it met its share of ¢2.9 billion out of the annual national revenue target of GH¢190 billion, emphasising that tax revenue remained the backbone of national development.
Compliance
Mrs Banahene said that to get people to comply, the office’s tax education plan had been designed to strengthen the relationship with taxpayers across all tax types.
She explained that through such continuous engagement, community outreach and media awareness programmes, the Tema Community 9 TSC hoped to improve filing rates and ensure timely payment of taxes.
The Tema Community 9 TSC Office Manager said to further encourage compliance, penalty and interest regimes were being enforced to reduce the practice of late filings and delayed payments.
She stressed that these measures were not intended to punish taxpayers, but to promote discipline and accountability in tax administration.
Additionally, Mrs Banahene stated that her outfit was also pursuing debt collection rigorously and, already, demand notices had been issued to defaulters, warning that taxpayers who remained non-compliant might face enforcement actions under the Revenue Administration Act, 2016 (Act 915).
She said these measures included garnishment of accounts, sealing of business premises and prosecution, but reiterated that such actions were a last resort.
Monitoring
Also, as part of the efforts, Mrs Banahene said her outfit had intensified monitoring of VAT compliance to ensure that businesses that charged VAT were duly paid.
She said consumers and taxpayers were being encouraged to insist on VAT invoices for all purchases and to scan the QR codes on e-VAT receipts to verify authenticity.
These moves, she explained, were aimed at improving VAT and levies collection, particularly during the festive season when commercial activity surged.
All hands on deck
Mrs Banahene urged all taxpayers to support revenue mobilisation, stressing that taxes remained the most reliable source of revenue for national development.
“All hands must be on deck to help boost tax revenue generation for Ghana’s progress,” she said, emphasising that taxes were the backbone of the economy and that faithful contributions would enable the government to mobilise the revenue needed for national development.
Writer's email: benjamin.glover@graphic.com.gh
