Revenue Authority to be operational in January

16/07/09

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru & Fauziatu Adam

THE proposed Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), which seeks to bring all revenue agencies under one umbrella, is to become operational in January, next year.
The Executive Secretary of the Revenue Agencies Governing Council, Mr Sam Sallas-Mensah, who made this known, said the legislation governing the operations of the GRA would be passed into law by mid-December, this year.
He was speaking at the launch of the Chartered Institute of Taxation Ghana (CITG) 2009 annual tax week celebration in Accra yesterday.
Activities lined up for the celebration include students’ forum, tax forum, seminars, annual general meeting, dinner and awards night.
Mr Sallas-Mensah mentioned the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) and the Value Added Tax (VAT) as some of the revenue agencies that would be replaced by the GRA.
He said the GRA would be a one-stop-shop, where customers would pay all their taxes.
That, Mr Sallas-Mensah said, would ensure efficiency in the collection of taxes.
Besides, he said, it would encourage people to pay their taxes, since the process would be less tedious and would save time.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, who launched the week celebration, urged the CITG to establish high ethical standards and create the right image for the institute.
He advised the institute to put in place policies which would ensure that members were abreast of modern trends in the taxation profession and as well understand the demands of new tax laws that emerged on the market.
Mr Tettey-Enyo urged them to grow the institute in terms of numbers and influence in society since that would put them in a better position to advise the government on taxation issues and consequently increase revenue generation.
He called on Ghanaians to get involved in the seminars organised by the institute to be well informed about the taxation system.
The President of the CITG, Mr Yaw Asante-Boadi, said the institute was exploring avenues for increased co-operation, exchange of tax competencies and tax ideas aimed at increased tax revenue generation and management within the West African sub-region.
He asked tax agencies to base their employment selection choice on graduates of the CITG as that would “increase the professionalism and technical competencies of the revenue agencies”.