Parliament has approved some GHc1.2 billion for the Ghana Revenue Authority’s use for the2019 financial year.
The money is, among other things, to enable the authority effectively implement its Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN) programme as well as have the means to effectively recover tax for the state from individuals and corporate entities.
The total tax revenue projected for 2019 is over GHc45 billion as against the 2018revised budget of GHc38 billion.
From January to September 2018, the GRA collected revenue amounting to an estimated GHc26billion as against a target of GHc28 billion, resulting in a negative deviation of GHc2.22 billion (-7.9%).
On expenditure,the Authority spent an amount of GHc749.84 million showing a positive variance of GHc9.96 million (1.3 %) for the same period.
Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Mark Assibey Yeboah explained funds are not just given to the authority – rather a system is in place to ensure taxes are pursued diligently.
“So the law says that a portion of the tax revenues collected, not exceeding three percent will be allocated to GRA. So for last year they got 2.44 percent of the taxes, for 2019, the government has agreed with them that they will get 2.66 percent of the tax revenue. So if you work the math, 2.66 per cent of the projected tax revenue comes to GHc1.2 billion. The more revenue they get, the bigger their budget allocation is. So it’s an incentive for them because we want to incentivize them to collect more taxes”,he said.
By Michael Eli Dokosi
