Government, in September this year, is expected to start the implementation of the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) Deputy Minister of Finance, Kweku Kwarteng has disclosed.
This new global standard on AEOI reduces the possibility of tax evasion.
He made this known at the African initiative – 5th taskforce meeting, in Accra.
Here in Ghana, the AEOI legal framework, which is the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Accounting Information Act, 2018 (Act 967) will compel reporting financial institutions to collect and submit information to the Ghana Revenue Authority.
Kwarteng noted that a committee has been set up to ensure a smooth implementation of the Automatic Exchange of Information.
AEOI will enable governments to recover tax revenue lost to non-compliant taxpayers, and will further strengthen international efforts to increase transparency, cooperation, and accountability among financial institutions and tax administrations.
This provides for the exchange of non-resident financial account information with the tax authorities in the account holders’ country of residence.
Additionally, AEOI will generate secondary benefits by increasing voluntary disclosures of concealed assets and by encouraging taxpayers to report all relevant information.
Illicit flows from Africa is estimated to be as much as US$50 billion per annum, approximately double the official development assistance that Africa receives.
A High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, chaired by Thabo Mbeki, revealed that between 2000 and 2008, US$252 billion in illicit flows were from the extractive industries in Africa.
Information sharing and data matching have the potential of improving revenue and curbing illicit financial flows on both the international and domestic front.
The Deputy Minister of Finance said, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has commenced the use of big data analytics to identify and register additional taxpayers and through that improve filing rates and revenue receipts.
This project is also integrating various data sources to identify recalcitrant taxpayers for compliance and enforcement actions.
By Joshua W. Amlanu
