The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), in collaboration with the National Identification Authority (NIA), has set up 14 offices across the country to synchronise tax identification numbers (TINs) with the Ghana Card, effective Thursday 1 April 2021.
The GRA will set up additional offices by the end of April to allow individuals who could not register for the Ghana Card during the mass registration to do so.
The Authority hopes to finish the synchronisation process by the end of December 2021 and begin to use the Ghana Card for transactions fully from January 2022.
This follows President Akufo-Addo’s announcement during his State of the Nation Address in Parliament last month that Ghana Card numbers would be replaced with TIN and other national card numbers from 1 April.
Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, Commissioner General of the GRA, announced this on Wednesday (31 March) when he visited the Adabraka Medium Taxpayer Office in Accra to observe its preparedness to use Ghana Card numbers as TINs.
Owusu-Amoah said the initiative is among efforts to identify and rope in more eligible taxpayers, especially those in the informal sector, and to enable organisations to share important data easily with the GRA.
Pay the right taxes
The NIA had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ghana Revenue Authority, Passport Office, Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to synchronise their biometric cards with the Ghana Card electronic database system.
Data from the GRA shows that the informal sector constitutes about 70% of the economy but that a mere 2% of those in the sector pay income tax.
He said the GRA had employed data scientists to analyse transactions by high-net-worth individuals (people with roughly US$1 million in liquid financial assets) to ensure that they were paying the right taxes to the government.
Owusu-Amoah said the GRA had configured and synchronised its data with 14 other government institutions, including the DVLA and SSNIT, to enable them to achieve the target.
The GRA has set a revenue target of GHC60 billion by the end of 2021.
The use of Ghana Card numbers as tax identification numbers is expected to increase the number of taxpayers from three million to 15.5 million.
Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online.
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
#asaaseradio #TVOL
