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| 'Talk tax' bags GH¢ 4 million |
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| Posted on: 2008-Aug-05 Daily Graphic |
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The Communications Services Tax (CST) which was introduced amidst much debate over its appropriateness and burden on the taxpayer has recorded more than GH¢4 million in its first month of collection.
The Large Taxpayer Unit of the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB), which collects taxes from big companies in the country, collected the bulk of the revenue, totalling GH¢3.99 million.
The Executive Secretary of the board, Mr Harry Owusu, said the incoming figures were ample signals that the system would perform beyond expectation.
Offices of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Service at Osu, Adabraka, Kaneshie, the Spintex Road and Tema also collected marginal amounts that brought the total figure to GH¢4.025 million at the end of last month.
The government announced the service tax on the use of airtime on cellular phones and other telecommunication services in the 2008 Budget which was presented to Parliament last November.
The tax affects mobile telephony, the Internet, fax and other information and communications technologies in the country and was introduced to replace import duties on mobile phones as a measure to check the evasion of duty by importers of mobile phones and, other communications gadgets.
According to the government, proceeds from the tax, popularly called Talk Tax, would be used to support the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
On the larger revenue front, domestic revenue collection was on target, recording a provisional GH¢1.692 billion mid-year, as against a target of GH¢1.668 billion, despite the debilitating impact of rising crude oil prices on the economy, Mr Owusu disclosed.
The performance represents 1.4 per cent in excess of actual collection over the target for the half year and amounts to a 22.3 per cent growth in nominal terms over collections during the same period last year and 17.5 per cent if inflation is taken into consideration (real terms).
Mr Owusu said the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), which is responsible for import duties and other taxes related to the importation of goods and services, exceeded its target of GH¢ 886.28 million by collecting GH¢ 889.10 million for the half year ending June.
He said the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which collects pay-as-you earn (PAYE) taxes, corporate taxes and other taxes related to income earnings, also exceeded its target by 5.7 per cent, having collected GH¢ 549.28 million as against a mid-year target of GH¢ 519.67 million.
Mr Owusu said the VAT Service, which receives taxes on consumption on behalf of the country, also collected GH¢ 253.75 million as against a half year target of GH¢262.51 million.
"In these times of world economic recession one would have expected revenue collections to be worse but the figures show otherwise," he said explaining that there had been a significant drop in duties on petroleum products as a result of the mitigating measures announced by the government in the second half of the year.
Mr Owusu stated that contributing to the good performance was the improved efficiency of the various revenue collecting agencies, saying. "The agencies have become proactive and vigilant in their areas of work."
The Executive Secretary of the RAGB said the Revenue Protection Unit established within the RAGB had complemented the preventive efforts of CEPS in intercepting uncustomed goods and cars that entered the country.
"The spate of smuggling has reduced and car custom documentation is also going up," he said.
Mr Owusu hinted that the RAGB had almost concluded negotiations on the introduction of point-of-sale devices in VAT-registered shops and traders for online VAT record taking to replace the electronic cash registers currently in use.
He said the devices would be piloted in some parts of Accra within trading outlets which were currently not using any cash registers, adding that once it became fully operational, the new system would completely phase out every electronic cash register.
The RAGB boss said the computerisation programme for the Internal Revenue Service was on course with the acquisition of some hardware, while efforts to• procure the software was almost completed.
However the implementation would only affect selected districts in Accra for a start.
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