GRA revenue for September up by 4.6%, rolls out new systems to seal loopholes

The Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu Amoah, has revealed that tax revenue performance for September 2022 was GH¢7,457,097 as against a target of GH¢7,128,061.

This, according to him, shows a positive deviation of 4.6 percent, which represents 29.8 percent 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 percent for the same period.

“Customs, particularly, for this September did very well and exceeded even the stretch target by GH¢246million,” 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 introduced the electronic VAT invoicing, and it connects to the invoicing system of the merchant. And as the merchants 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 roll-out of rigorous enforcement and compliance measures.