The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced full operationalization of the common platform for the collection of property rates to commence by ending of this month, March, 2023.
According to Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, the platform, which will be in full throttle by the end of the month, will help introduce efficiency into property rate collection.
“In terms of all the works that needs to be done have been done. And we’re expecting that, a full takeover will be from the end of this month. I mean this month going…”
Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah
Speaking about what is being done so far by his outfit, Rev. Owusu-Amoah indicated that so far,
“What we have done is that; there are a number of properties that we have already raised assessment of. We have introduced a common platform; that is, a system that allows you to be able to populate all the properties in there. And then, within that system we are able to generate your rates applicable to your property.”
Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah
Rev. Owusu-Amoah further noted that the property rates differ from area to area, “that is, municipality to municipality” and has therefore indicated that his outfit will do well in this regard, to advise the property owners of the various rates assigned to them.
Moreover, the Commisioner General of GRA, urged all property owners to go and update their records with any additional properties they have. He also encouraged them to pay in advance if they so desire, once the platform is ready, explaining that they can go ahead to do so even as work is underway to generate their applicable rates. “You’ll be able to get the right figure for your property rate when the rates are updated”, Rev. Owusu-Amoah added.
“So end of March is the effective date…and we’re expecting that everybody will be on board and it will be for the whole year. So we’re expecting that any payments that anybody will have to do on property rates this year, must be done on the platform.”
Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah
The common platform is being designed to centralize the collection of property tax rates with the GRA from the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Authorities (MMDAs), who failed to effectively collect property tax rates to finance their activities.
According to Governance Watch, the new regime would ensure that only 30% of property rates collected by the service provider through the common platform, will be remitted to the assemblies.
The remaining 70% will be shared among the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Finance Ministry and the service provider.
Meanwhile, Rev. Owusu-Amoah credited this new development to innovations brought about by the introduction of technology. Technology, he said has played a significant role in the company’s tax mobilization efforts.
According to him, the Authority managed to ensure efficiency and compliance, as well as, has been able to significantly reduce wastage of funds by incorporating technology into its operations.
GRA is set to improve its services by exploiting technology
Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah noted that the Authority will continue to capitalize on technology to improve its services and meet set targets.
The GRA Commissioner General pointed out that, GRA has been able to downsize, while also reducing situations that may cause employees to engage in corrupt behaviours with the introduction of the cashless system.
“I think technology has played a significant role and I will not underplay it at all. And I think that going forward, we’ll continue to emphasize on technology. Because, if you look in the past couple of years, we started with the cashless, which actually meant that we had to take out of our offices over 257 tellers. And you know, when people are collecting cash, I mean, recently you heard this story about issues with Land’s Commission and some tax stamp issues…And so today, we don’t collect cash at all in our offices. That, ensures that there is efficiency and monitoring.”
Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah
Rev. Owusu-Amoah also noted how the cashless system has helped resolve issues of returned cheques, which used to be a significant dent in their operations prior to 2020. Taking into consideration how difficult it is for businesses to pay taxes, it behooves on the Authority to ensure that tax payment processes are easy and convenient, he stated.
This, he said has been achieved through the online filing system, which now allows people file their taxes from the comfort of their homes.
“Today, people can also file online. Tax paying is not easy, so if you make the tax paying convenient for the tax payer, it makes it a bit easier for the tax payer to also pay.”
Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah
In addition, Rev. Owusu-Amoah illustrated using the drivers’ phone call alert system for addressing over speeding, how the Authority intends to take advantage of technology to achieve compliance.
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