We need efficiencies to block loopholes in our tax systems – Economist  

An economist on Wednesday stressed the need for government to ensure efficiencies in the nation’s tax systems to generate enough revenue required for rapid socio-economic growth and development.

“The problem is not the introduction of new taxes and rates, but how to develop innovative strategies to widen the nation’s tax net remains our problem”, Mr. Isaac Appiah Amankwa, a lecturer, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Catholic University College of Ghana (CUCG) stated.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the University’s campus at Fiapre in the Sunyani West Municipality, Mr. Amankwa said efficiencies into and blockage of loopholes in the tax system remained necessary to improve revenue generation.

“Ghanaians are already over-burdened by taxation. We have quite a number of taxes and we must introduce efficiencies into the system to broaden our tax net”, he said.

Mr. Amankwa however, commended the government for bringing down the policy and lending rates to 13.5 per cent and 23 per cent respectively but added the government ought to do more to drop the exchange rate as well.

He also underlined the need for the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to strategize and increase their internal revenue mobilization to execute development.

“The Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development must set a yearly revenue target for the MMDAs to ginger the as a challenge for them to do better”.

“Our Assemblies have enormous opportunities to generate sufficient revenue locally. For instance, it is clear that the majority of the people are not paying property rates and this is unacceptable”, Mr. Amankwa indicated.

Source: GNA