The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Seth Twum-Akwaboah says digital tax stamps are key to improving the industry’s tax compliance.
He stated that the industry’s technique of purchasing stamps and fastening them to the goods was time-consuming and expensive to maintain.
The CEO said this at the just-ended Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Tema Regional Branch of the Association of Ghanaian Industry held in Tema.
The AGM brought together businesses from the Tema industrial enclave to discuss major issues affecting their operations, as well as a capacity-building session on withholding tax and tax compliance.
Key events included the presentation and acceptance of the association’s financial report.
Twum-Akwaboah stressed that digital stamps would reduce the tax compliance cost of businesses since businesses would not be required to print the stamps, thus reducing the cost of business.
He said the digital tax stamps, although in the pilot stage, had demonstrated considerable ease of compliance, noting that businesses that participated in the pilot reported significant ease of compliance.
We appreciate the government understanding businesses by introducing these digital tax stamps for us. We understand it is at the pilot stage, but the companies like Guinness Ghana that participated in the pilot informed us about the success.
“Initially, the stamps we were using were affecting us and the businesses, because it incurred an extra cost on us to print and stamp them on our products,“ he said.
The CEO called for a more enhanced collaboration between the Ghana Revenue Authority and the business community to further increase tax compliance to improve the government’s revenue.
He lauded government for incorporating some of the recommendations of the Association in the annual and mid-year; however, implementation of some of the recommendations remained a challenge.
Joseph Asare, Director, GRA, Accra East Office, said the digital tax stamps will enable his outfit to identify the fake tax stamps.
He said his outfit was interested in initiatives that would match revenue with convenience, noting that if tax compliance was difficult, the government’s revenue will be affected.
