Mr Isaac Kobina Amoako, GRA Head of the Project Transformation Unit has stated that the cashless system being implemented by the authority is attractive to investors.
According to Mr Amoako, the cashless system will help GRA improve on its tax compliance and do away with the manual ways of carrying cash and filing tax returns say. He further noted that, “If you improve ease of doing business ranking, you become attractive to investors”.
Furthermore, he indicated that, as a result of the implementation of cashless policy geared towards the promotion of government’s effort to operate a cashless economy, cash is no more accepted in the domestic tax offices.
“As a result neither cash nor cheques are acceptable at any of its domestic tax offices, thus, the Authority is urging all taxpayers to acquaint themselves with digital systems in order to satisfy tax requirements to the state”.
Isaac Amoako
Moreover, Mr Amoako said the GRA has abandoned cash handling to the banks while focusing on its core function of assessing taxpayers, collection of taxes for the state and paying these revenues into the consolidated fund.
Meanwhile, he reiterated that going digital aligned with government’s agenda to digitize the economy to promote efficiency, convenience as well as improve Ghana’s ranking in the ease of doing business.
That notwithstanding, Mr. Amoako highlighted one key advantage of the cashless system. “Going cashless offered their clients variety of channels to file tax returns anywhere in the world at any time of the day.”
However, Mrs. Mercy Amerley Brocke, GRA Head of the Information Technology Service Centre explaining the process for accessing the platform said one can sign up via the centralized government platform, www.ghana.gov using his or her email address and telephone number.
She noted that once a user is signed up, one has to select GRA from the options available, to reach the “file and pay taxes” button. She continued, “From that menu, one would be able to select the type of tax, payable using the Tax Identification Number.”
Mrs Brocke also suggested that, clients could make payments via visa or credit cards, mobile money, QR code scan, bank deposits to pay all forms of taxes including; Value Added Taxes (VAT), withholding taxes, personal income tax, company taxes and customs duties.
In addition, she noted that, “we have also launched the USSD code *222# which you can use to transact with the GRA”.
However, she mentioned that taxpayers who do not register with the ghana.gov platform could still access invoices at GRA’s offices and pay directly at the banks.
Meanwhile she noted that without a Tax Identification Number or Personal Identification Number of the Ghana Card, one cannot do business with the GRA and urged taxpayer’s to take advantage to register for the Ghana Card.
She however indicated that, payments to the GRA using cheques would only take effect after cheques were cleared 48 hours after issuance at the banks as such, she however advised taxpayers to issue cheques in advance of date of expiration in order to avoid the penalties thereof.
Meanwhile, The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) since the beginning of this month July, 2021, has begun the implementation of cashless policy geared towards the promotion of government’s effort to operate a cashless economy.
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