GRA committed to meeting GH¢47.2bn target despite coronavirus shocks - GRA boss

Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Mr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, has said despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic to businesses and personal incomes, the authority has put in place measures to ensure that revenue mobilization targets for 2020 are achieved.

Speaking on Friday, September 11, 2020, at a media forum in Accra, the GRA boss stated that among the measures instituted to ensure the authority meets its revenue target includes the restructuring of the domestic tax system and a focus on three key things – people, technology and service – in its revenue mobilization efforts.

He also disclosed that an ongoing process to make all GRA offices a one-stop-shop for the payment of all categories of taxes is among the innovative ways the authority has adopted to boost tax compliance and shore up tax revenue.

“In these times, expenditure is very high and revenues are low. But we need to revenue to be able to meet the growing expenditure…as an authority, we cannot continue to do business as usual, thus we have put in place a number of measures to ensure that we attain our original target of GH¢47.2 billion, even though the target has been revised in the [2020] mid-year budget to GH¢42.7 billion,” he said.

Owusu-Amoah gave these updates when he was addressing journalists at a media engagement organized at the behest of the GRA.

The media engagement was on the theme: "Tax Compliance and the COVID-19 Pandemic - Role of the Media."

“We are determined as an organization to collectively put our shoulders to wheel as we roll out many policies to ensure that we attain this target and then we can still even look out see if the initial budgetary revenue target of GHc55 billion for this year is attainable,” he said.

He also disclosed at the programme that the mining, telecommunications and financial sectors have performed appreciably in terms of tax payment, citing personal income tax, PAYE and taxes on excise goods as among the sectors that performed poorly.