[ 2017-11-07 ]

2018 budget to improve domestic revenue collection
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has stated that
the 2018 budget which will be presented in
parliament later this month will use innovative
ways to improve domestic revenue collection for
economic development.

This follows calls from the Institute of Fiscal
Studies, urging government to use the 2018 budget
to improve tax collection by broadening the tax
base.

Speaking at the 38th Annual Technical Conference
in Accra, Ken Ofori-Atta stated that it is
important to improve tax collection since
Ghana’s tax to GDP ratio is below what is
required for economic development.

He hinted that improving domestic revenue is one
of the critical areas that the budget will
address.

“We are in the middle of our tax budget season
and the budget will be read on November 15th and
the challenges are obvious to us in terms of where
we are as a nation,” he observed.

“Currently tax to GDP is about 16 percent which
is much lower in terms of where we are as a nation
which is much lower than it should be since we
should be looking at about 22 to 25 percent and
that possess a challenge,” he said.

Giving some figures, Mr. Ofori-Atta pointed out
that the tax compliance among the informal sector
is too low despite the economic activities
generated in that sector.

This, he said has put the tax burden on a few
workers in the formal sector, affecting
government’s revenue projections.

“We have a situation where about 4 million
people in the formal sector and about 1.1 million
are paying taxes of about 3.5 billion”.

GRA targets 40bn domestic revenue

Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has
hinted that it may target over 40 billion cedis
revenue generation in the 2018 budget to boost
government revenue base.

The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue
Authority (GRA), Emmanuel Kofi Nti stated that the
authority intends to improve its operations to
meet the target.

Source - citibsinessnews.com

... go Back