GRA revenue for September up by 4.6%; authority rolls out new systems

The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu Amoah has revealed that tax revenue performance for September 2022 was GHS7,457,097M as against a target of GHS7,128,061M. This, according to him shows a positive deviation of 4.6% which represents 29.8% of its year-to-date performance. Speaking during an interaction with the media in Accra, he said, Customs revenue also grew nominally by 29.8% for the same period. “Customs particularly for this September did very well and exceeded even the stretch target by 246 million,” he disclosed. The Commissioner General said the Authority is implementing a number of tax policy initiatives to boost revenue generation this year. “We have introduced the GRA Taxpayers portal, which is basically a portal that allows you to log in to see your own tax activity. Again we have also introduced electronic VAT invoicing and it connects to the invoicing system of the merchant. And as the merchant trade, we see every invoice and details of purchase. We have introduced a new excise stamp tax authenticator which is also an app that allows you to use your phone to test whether what it is on the bottle is genuine or not.” As part of measures to improve revenue for the state, he said the Authority will be piloting an e-auction module on the Integrated Customs Management System. The GRA boss said, “our target is that from 15th October we are loading some of the items available for auction on this system as a pilot phase and every citizen is free to go there to look at the vehicles and decide if they are interested.” He said in order to achieve its revenue target for the year 2022, GRA is adopting strategies to ensure that all loopholes are sealed with the rollout of rigorous enforcement and compliance measures.