Govt to expand tax base and improve revenue mobilization

Abena Osei Asare, the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, has stated that while efforts to increase tax mobilization in the formal sector have been made, plans are advanced to widen the tax base.

During a panel discussion at the ongoing IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., Mrs Asare highlighted the challenges facing Ghana’s revenue mobilization efforts, including a narrow tax base due to the informal economy and a culture of non-compliance.

This indicates a narrow tax base that needs to be addressed.

“One of the challenges that we see in Ghana is the narrow tax base, most of the economy is not formalized

When I say that I mean that most of the people are in the informal sector so we are not able to capture and bring them to the tax when it comes to payment of direct taxes

“So clearly, you could tell that the tax base was narrow, and so we need to do something to address this

Our tax revenue administration, there’s a lot that we need to do to prop up in terms of reducing human interventions and digitising most of our revenue lines to make sure that we can rake in more revenue and also there’s a culture of non-compliance.”