IRS TO SIMPLIFY TAX PAYMENT

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has declared its intention to make tax paying easy and attractive to the taxpayers across all sectors of the country’s economy.
This follows the introduction new software to enhance calculation, use of accurate tax rate, casting of total and help reduce delays in filing of returns.
At the launch of the software, “PAYE Software” for Small and Medium Enterprises in the Western Region, it was identified that hitherto the introduction of the software, the mode of filling returns was characterized by many anomalies.
According the experts and contributors at the lunch, many enterprises were still calculating taxes wrongly and using wrong tax rates which resulted into difficulty in completing the income tax return form.
Such problems did not only have effect on effective tax administration but also a drain in the mobilization by various tax agencies.
The new software per the presentation would eliminate many of these problems and SMES, other public and private institutions could now calculate tax in efficient and effective manner.
In his remarks before the launch, the Regional Manager of IRS, Mr James K. Nyantekyi said the software would help tax administrators to control the process and machinery in optimizing revenue and to increase the quality of service to taxpayers by reducing the time of processing the returns.
He said left with the taxpayers there should be no tax, therefore, in order to get the tax payer to be willing to pay, there was the need to enhance the mode of payment.
He said the software which is free and easy to installed, would enhance businesses way of filling their returns on time and to avoid penalties for late submission and subsequent payment of taxes.
Mr Nyantekyi said “as stated in the 2010 budget, the three revenue agencies are to be integrated into Ghana Revenue Authority, which means that the tax administration is going to be organised through information communication technology for faster and greater efficiency.”
He said the move means the movement from manual to automated responses, paper communications to electronic communication, cheque and cash to electronic fund transfer and assistance to self help education.”
The regional manager said revenue generated from various taxes was one of the principle means which any government finances its expenditure.
He said if the country had to execute its development project to make life more enjoyable to countrymen and women, there was the need for more enhanced tax system to rake in more.
“For more schools, hospitals, modern health care system, public transportations system and many others, it is imperative for any tax administration to improve on revenue mobilization machinery and to modernize our service delivery to take advantage of global technologies to enhance or operations,” he said.
Mr Patrick Danso of IRS took the participants through the benefits and mode of installation of the software on their machines in their premises.