African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) in collaboration with Department For International Development (DFID) and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has created a platform for the citizens to share information about people who have evaded tax to assist the state recover revenue for development.
Henceforth citizens will have to click onto a button on their computers onto the www.openghana.com to share information on tax evasion to help the tax governing body retrieve the taxes that have eluded the state.
According to ACEP, an application will be developed on the goggle play store to enable the citizenry download the APPs on the android devices.
Speaking at the launch of the online portal for learning about the tax laws and to report tax evaders, the Executive Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye said the introduction of the tax campaign programme is to contribute to the revenue mobilization efforts of the GRA.
If we do not take the responsibility to contribute our quota to the country, we cannot demand developments from the government.
We say we need good roads, schools and well planned cities then we have to pay our taxes for the government to be able to mobilize it to achieve this aim he explained.
The Executive Director of the policy think tank said it about time everybody is engaged to contribute to the developments of the country.
According to him, Ghana lost a whopping eight hundred and fifty million Ghana Cedis in the petroleum downstream sector through tax evasion.
We have to help the government track the loopholes in the revenue sector of the economy to enable us demand accountability from the government when they are not performing.
A Senior Revenue Officer of GRA, Anita Naadu Anaba Ania said there are about ten million income earners in the country but only a little over one million workers pay tax with only two hundred in the informer sector of the economy paying to the state.
She said in view of this that the GRA launched the national tax and voluntarily compliance campaign to roll in the needed tax for the state for developments.
She took the opportunity to urge the general public to be partners in the revenue mobilization needs of the country by honouring their tax obligations to the state.
According to her, this will ensure revenues collected are used for the right purposes to ensure the development of the country.
Elorm Segbefia, a representative of DFID said they took keen interest in the development of the platform because issues of tax are critical for development.
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