Only 2% of informal sector pay taxes

Chief Revenue Officer of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Mr Richard Hakeem Quainoo has revealed that Ghanaian informal sector constitutes 70 per cent of the business enterprises, but just two per cent of them pay their taxes as and when due.

He disclosed that only 1.5 million of the expected six million taxpayers honoured their responsibilities, with 200,000 being from the informal sector.

In Nigeria, statistics show that 70 per cent of taxable adults hardly pay taxes unless workers in public service.

However, latest record from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) shows that Nigeria’s tax basket surged in 2018 due to aggressive campaigns of the agency powered by momentary reviews of tax regulations by the Ministry of Finance under the immediate former Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

Though the erstwhile speed and official seriousness in capturing taxpayers dropped immediately Mrs Adeosun exited government in a controversial circumstance, recent hard line posture of FIRS in aiming at selling off assets of indebted companies may create serious shocks to the administration tax systems in Nigeria.

Explaining more at a Sensitisation Programme in Accra, for informal business groups on National Tax Policies and ways of Ensuring Compliance, GRA boss, appealed for the cooperation of Ghanaians in getting tax defaulters to settle their outstanding liabilities, increasing voluntary compliance of payments and in the filing of tax returns.

National Daily gathered that just as in Nigeria, any operator in the informal sector in Ghana has been advised to register for their Tax Identification Number (TIN) because without that, they could not transact business with the Registrar General’s Department, Passport Office, the courts, among other institutions.