Mr Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, a legal tax consultant, on Tuesday urged the government to publish what Ghanaians pay as taxes to ensure that more people comply with their tax obligations.

Comparing paying of taxes to church collections, he said some churches and mosques display what they got every week for members to assess projects going on, hence people are willing to contribute towards church projects. “In a similar vein, if Ghanaians are able to see what is done with their taxes more people will be willing to pay,” Mr Ali-Nakyea said.

He was sharing his view at a forum organized by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana to share the findings of a survey conducted by Afrobarometer, a non-governmental organization that ascertained citizens’ view on taxation. He said widening the tax net was not a solution to the country’s tax problems and urged the government to be clear on what was meant by widening the tax net. Questioning the tax system, he said “Is it that many people are exempted from paying taxes? If that is so we need to review the exemption policy”.

Hammering on the need for extensive and effective education on taxes, he said many people did not see the benefit they got from paying taxes. Mr Ali-Nakyea advised the government to resource the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to make tax education a priority.

“The first civic responsibility of every citizen is paying taxes,” he said. Mr Kofi Bentil, Vice President of IMANI, a policy think tank, spoke about the tax systems and urged the tax authorities to get the fundamentals right.

He said: “One cannot tell what the tax philosophies of this country are” The survey pointed out among other things that the tax system was complicated and recommended that it should be simple and easy to administer to ensure efficiency in tax administration.

Ms Kathy Addy, an official of Afrobarometer who presented the finding, said Ghanaians were generally favourably disposed towards paying taxes and more so paying more taxes for public services. She said 84 percent of Ghanaians strongly agreed that citizens ought to pay taxes to support government development efforts.

Ms Addy said citizens attributed tax evasion to an unfair system of collecting tax where they thought that the rates were too high, wasteful use of tax payers’ money or that tax officials were corrupt.