Accra, March 11, GNA – Mr. Patrick Frimpong-Danso, Office of the Commissioner for Domestic Tax Revenue Division, Ghana Revenue Authority, has advised small business owners to keep proper records of their businesses.
This, he said, would enable them to file their tax returns on time to avoid defaulting.
Speaking at a training workshop for women entrepreneurs in Accra, Mr Frimpong-Danso noted that proper record keeping would also enable the owners to measure the performance of their business to ensure their sustainability.
“In taxation, keeping record is very key so we would advise that if you have a one-man business or a small business, keep proper records, when you keep proper records, it makes it easier for you to file your tax returns.
“It makes it easier for you to know whether your business is growing or its not growing, and these are the things that for tax people we look at,” he said.
The training, organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) was on the topic: “Digitisation and Voluntary Tax Compliance for Women in Business.”
It, among other things, sought to sensitise women on the legal framework for conducting business in Ghana; the various platforms introduced by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Registrar-General Department (RGD) to ensure tax compliance along with the several laws that were mandated to protect witnesses reporting corruption.
It formed part of activities under an Australian High Commission’s Direct Aid Program (DAP) funded project dubbed “Promoting Voluntary Compliance among Women in Business through Sensitization of the Digitisation of Tax Processes.”
Mr Frimpong-Danso said the Authority had in the last couple of years undertaken massive digitisation exercises to ease the stress of paying taxes, adding that it had made a significant progress in raking in more revenue to advance the development agenda of the State.
He said: “So, with all these things what we have done is that the digitisation agenda that we have put in place in GRA where we have made it easier for taxpayers to be able to go through their taxes, submit their tax returns very easily.”
The GRA, in 2021 collected a total of GHC57.32 billion as revenue, exceeding its target of ¢57.02 billion for the year. It is expected to collect a total of GHC80.3 billion for the 2022 fiscal year.
Mr Frimpong-Danso said, to achieve this target, the GRA in the coming days, would embark on massive sensitisation of the public to create more awareness about the various tax payment platforms to increase tax compliance.
He urged businesses to continue to honour their tax obligations to the State to enjoy tax rebates given by the GRA.
Mrs Mary Addah, Programmes Manager at GII, said, women entrepreneurs faced numerous challenges in their business operations, including extortion from authorities and lack of understanding of the tax processes.
She said the training was, therefore, to enlightened women on the GRA’s and the Registrar-General’s digitised tax platforms to ensure tax compliance.
She encouraged women entrepreneurs to be bold and report any act of corruption, as well as corrupt officials they might encounter in their line of business to the appropriate authorities to curb further exploitation.
GNA