GRA urges informal business operators to fulfill tax obligations

Informal business operators have been advised to keep good records and run their businesses in a very transparent way to ensure easy honouring of their tax obligations.

Apart from keeping good records, the informal business operators have also been urged to adopt strategies that would enable them to effectively compete and make profit.

Ms Rebecca Naa Kai Adjetey, a tax officer at the Nima Small Taxpayer Office (STO), gave the advice at a day’s tax education seminar organised for members of the Kowaa Na So Tailors and Dressmakers Association at Maamobi in Accra.

The seminar, organised by the Nima STO of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in collaboration with the National Commission for Civic Education, was part of the national tax campaign aimed at sensitizing the public on the need to honour their tax obligations.

Ms Adjetey urged workers in the informal sector to make it their duty to pay their taxes to ensure development at all levels.

She advised them not to see tax collectors as enemies but people who could help them to make their businesses progress.

The taxes mobilized by a government, she said, would be used to provide roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and water and other infrastructure to improve the living standards of Ghanaians.

She expressed worry that people in the informal sector, including tailors and hairdressers, usually failed to declare their actual profits and were also unwilling to pay taxes.

The organizer of the Association, Mr Osman Abdul Raman, appealed to GRA to involve the Association in the determination of taxes.

He said high taxes and fees imposed on members of the Association affect their businesses and that results in the tax evasion.