Decentralise the Registrar General Department-GNCCI

Story: Boahene Asamoah

THE Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) has called for the decentralisation of the services of the Registrar General’s Department throughout the country in a bid to track companies and ensure that they honour their tax obligations.
The chamber said if that was done, it could be a central base for revenue agencies as well as help widen the tax net.
This was contained in a communiqué issued by the chamber at the end of a workshop for advocacy on tax reduction and widening of the tax net in the country.
The workshop, which was supported by the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC), was aimed at lobbying government to further reduce corporate taxes in the country, while widening the tax net to rope in the informal sector of the economy.
The chamber expressed concern about the lack of decentralisation of the services of the Registrar General's Department.
The chamber also noted that the National Identification System could be adopted and used as an effective tracking system for business operations and tax payments.
The 12-point communiqué stressed the need to encourage voluntary compliance with tax obligations by improving customer care such as making payment systems easier through the use of electronic data to ensure that tax payers would not have to spend a lot of time at the Internal Revenue Office trying to pay their taxes.
The communiqué also called for system networking and integration, adding that “if this is done, the tax payer can pay his /her tax from any point such as the banks or utility agencies. With the tax identification number, money paid will automatically be updated at the internal severs of the revenue agencies,” the chamber said.
The GNCCI suggested to the authorities to create incentives for voluntary tax compliance for both the formal and informal sectors.
“In the formal sector tax compliance should be a condition for achieving Club 100 status, self-assessment status, automatic refund of excess payment of taxes, exemption from withholding tax and easy issuance of tax credit certificates,” the communiqué suggested.
In the informal sector, tax compliance should be a condition for access to loans, grants and aid for business support from the government, the communiqué suggested.
It added that the informal sector taxpayers who belonged to business or trade associations should be targeted for support schemes that would help them to grow their businesses to enable them to pay more taxes in future.
The communiqué urged officers of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Value Added Tax Service (VAT), the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) and the Registrar General’s Department to develop and organise free seminars on relevant topics for members of identifiable groups such as hairdressers and beauticians, the Association of Traditional Caterers, the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) and others who operate in clusters such as exist in Odawna, Suame Magazine, Abossey Okai and Makola areas.
The communiqué said banks and other credit agencies could also use tax compliance as a measure of credit rating and good business practices for advancing loans to such informal sector operators.
It said the chamber was ready to collaborate with the revenue agencies to identify their members for the purposes of tax payment and compliance, but would not be collection agents for the tax authorities.