Tax payment goes online today

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) will from today move its tax payment systems online.

This is part of the GRA’s digitisation effort aimed at making it more convenient for taxpayers to meet their tax obligations and also prevent tax evasion.

The digital applications currently in place ensure that taxpayers file their returns and make payments without visiting any GRA office. The Commission is envisaging that by the end of 2021, GRA will move to a cashless system where payment of cash in their offices will cease.

Per a detailed digital plan sighted by the B&FT, the GRA is planning to move tax payment to electronic platforms by the end of May while it prepares to stop accepting cheques by June. After this, the GRA will redeploy all it cashiers who used to operate at various offices across the country by July 1.

The Commissioner-General of the GRA, Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, speaking during the opening ceremony of the 2021 management retreat held in Koforidua said: “We are also working on matching our data with other agencies to obtain data on persons outside the tax net and follow up on same to get them registered for tax purposes.”

He was optimistic this will help in building the capacity of staff in the area of Information Communication Technology (ICT), which is being supported by one of the authority’s donor partners KFW by constructing an IT Training Academy.

The retreat themed: ‘Digitisation and Compliance for Effective Revenue Mobilisation’ is geared at formulating the right strategies to achieve the set targets.