Sunyani (Brong Ahafo), 4 March, '99 -

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Donald Adabre, has called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to introduce a new tax collection culture under which individuals, groups and companies will be encouraged to pay their taxes on their own volition. He noted with satisfaction that although voluntary tax payment has started to work perfectly with the recent implementation of the Value Added Tax (VAT), other tax agencies such as the IRS are capable of adopting the procedure with better educational strategies. Mr Adabre was opening a management seminar for IRS staff drawn from the Northern sector at Sunyani yesterday. The three-day seminar has the theme "The service on the threshold of a new millennium: evolving sustainable strategies". Mr Adabre said many people expect general improvement in their standard of living without considering the fact that "it is their taxes that are used to finance development programmes mainly due to lack of education". He, therefore, reminded the public that no serious economic development could take place without adequate revenue mobilisation towards the provision of basic infrastructure facilities. "Taxes are what the people pay for development and government can only re-double its efforts towards accelerated development if more tax revenue is realised." He said the government's programme to reduce inflation to a single digit would mean a priority to revenue mobilisation from taxes to reduce reliance on loans and internal borrowings, which attract high interest rates. Mr David Adom, IRS Commissioner, enumerated some of IRS' goals for the next millennium, which include increased efficiency to collect sufficient revenue to enable the government to balance the national budget and reduce borrowing. IRS targets to collect one trillion cedis in taxes this year. Last year, it exceeded its project receipts of 785 billion cedis by 30 per cent. Mr Adom said IRS has established a corporate plan, which would help it to attain the set objectives of Vision 2020 and overcome all the challenges envisaged in the new millennium. Through education, the IRS would promote greater self- assessment and voluntary compliance with existing tax laws and open up new tax offices in new commercial areas to bring its services to the doorsteps of the people. Mr Adom said the service has appealed to the Ministry of Finance to make it possible for it to retain cost of tax collection before paying the remaining proceeds into the consolidated fund.