Takoradi, Nov. 20 GNA - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), has introduced am income
tax software to assist taxpayers to properly file correct monthly income tax returns, Mr James
Kwaku Nyantakyi, the acting Western Regional Director of the Service on Thursday announced. He was speaking at a one-day workshop on the application of the software, which was
dubbed: "IRS Tax Helper" for representatives of medium and small enterpri= ses at Takoradi. Mr Nyantakyi said the software was developed because returns submitt= ed by taxpayers were
often wrongly calculated as a result of the use of wrong tax rates and totals were inaccurate. He said some taxpayers had difficulty in completing income tax retur= ns forms and this
caused delays in the filing of returns. Mr Nyantakyi said on the whole, the software would enhance efficienc= y in their business
processes to enable them pay a fair and equitable tax for the development= of the country. He said it would enhance revenue administration through Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) when the IRS was integrated into the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as
was announced in the 2010 budget. He said the software would also help tax administrators to control t= he processes and
machinery in optimizing revenue from the income tax, increase quality of service to taxpayers by
reducing the time of processing the returns and help businesses to file returns on time to avoid
penalties for late submission and payment of taxes. Mr Nyantakyi said the software had been developed with support from development partners
as part of the Public Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) and launched by the government to
provide support to IRS and other public institutions to achieve sustainab= le and widespread
private sector led growth throughout the country. Eighteen government Ministries, Departments and Agencies which activities impact on the
growth of the private sector have been identified to use the software, support them to implement
favourable investment reforms and to enable them to provide more efficien= t services to the
private sector. 20 Nov. 09
