Revenue Authority Bill to go Cabinet

By Fred SARPONG

Revenue Authority Bill, which is to specify the details and functions of the new Ghana Revenue Authority will be sent to Cabinet by next month before Parliament resume in October for approval after which it will be presented to Parliament for its passage into an act or law.

This site has learnt that the drafted document has gone through Attorney General’s department for consideration and preparation is underway to be sent to Cabinet.

The current government fined it prudent to create an authority that will solely be responsible for the revenue generation in the country.

It is to this effect that the draft document has been drafted. Two names are been considered which the final one is expected to be approved by Parliament.

The new authority is expected to be called Ghana or National Revenue Authority (GRA). This authority will be a merger of Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Value Added Tax (VAT), and Custom Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS).

The introduction of this new bill and it passage by Parliament is to repeal the other relevant laws such as IRS Act, CEPS Act, VAT Act and as well as the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB) Act.

The Executive Secretary of RAGB, Sam Sallas-Mensah said this is to allow the tax administration to be performed in an integrated manner.

According to him the introduction of the authority will bring on board three new commissioners who will be in charge of various sectors under the authority. For instance, there will be a commissioner who will combine the activities of IRS and VAT. This commissioner will take care of domestic tax system in the country and will be solely responsible for Large Taxpayers Unit, Small Taxpayers Unit and Medium Taxpayers Unit among others.

Also is a commissioner to handle the activities of CEPS. He will be in charge of International Tax system while there will be also a Support Service commissioner to take care of information technology (IT), public relations (PR), human resource (HR) and among others services under the authority.

Apart from these three commissioners there will be Commissioner General who will act between the commissioners and the board. Currently, the three commissioners are board members but with the new concept the three are not part of the board.

He indicated that CEPS, which have a military background, will be given a special role to play as part of their revenue collection under the authority.

Hon. Sallas-Mensah said government has secured US$50 million from World Bank for the integration exercise. He noted that the integration will take about 18 to 24 months to complete.

He indicated that purpose of this integration is to have one pay master general, one tax education system, one customer relations and so on to serve the three under the authority. He cited example of Ghana Army Forces, Air force and the Navy having one pay master general serving them.

He noted that revenue administration in Ghana is currently on tax type basis. This results in tax evasion, high cost of compliance and administration. The current laws do not allow the creation of an integration tax administration.

For effective tax administration, he stated that the revenue agencies should be integrated into authority to ensure optimal productivity. The integration will therefore require a restructuring of the landscape for tax administration.