Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) is targeting more business from the Indian community in the country to boost the bank’s bottom line.

Speaking at an Indian Business Seminar organised by the bank, John Awuah, the bank’s Managing Director noted that attracting business from the strong and critical Indian community is part of the bank’s strategy going forward.

He added that the seminar is not meant to target a certain part of society but rather a strategy of the bank to improve on its engagement processes, meet a lot more of the bank’s customers and potential customers.

“This is about our strategy going forward and trying to understand our customers and potential ones. We started this with the Chinese businesses in the country and this is a continuation with what we have set off to do in 2016 and we are going to do similar ones.

Indians play a significant role in this economy and society and we have significant business interest in that community and once they stay together and talk to each other then we should be able to meet them and understand them better and help them make decisions,” he said.

Speaking on the topic “Conquering the Tax Landscape”, Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, Managing Partner of Ali-Nakyea and Associates, tutored the Indian businessmen on the various tax laws and the new Income Tax law and how to file taxes the right way and time.

“The best way of tax planning is tax compliance. You must know how to manage your tax affairs. The first thing is for you to understand what is in the tax, the provisions, and requirements because to every right there is an obligation,” he said, adding that “even if the tax laws provide you with some incentives or reliefs it will put some obligations on you like withholding taxes, time of paying and filing your returns.”

He added that one key thing about taxation is that if the person does not know about the provisions of the law how does he or she comply?

“I think tax education is key. Defaulting taxpayers are in three categories. Firstly, those who do not know the law and so do not know what to do. Secondly those who know the law but do not know what to do and then those who know the law, know what to do but won’t do it.

“For the first category they need education and guidance and the second need guidance whiles the third need to be punished to serve as a deterrent to others because they will serve bad precedence to others,” stressed.

Mahesh Mathani, Executive Director of the Honda Place Ghana, lauded UMB for organising such a seminar.

“Tax laws and systems have to evolve and changed according to the present times and government needs so it is normal and we do not see it as been good or bad or sour. It is normal for us and there are pros and cons for everything and I don’t think it is a major issue.”