22.5m Ghanaians Don’t Pay Tax

Ghana loses several millions of cedis each year due to tax evsion by its own citizens. The blight has eaten deep into the moral fabric of the Ghanaian society to the extent that it continues to take a heavy toll on national revenue mobilization.

At a recent meeting with members of the Ghana Canada Chamber of Commerce in Accra, Trade & Industry Minister Hannah Tetteh confirmed that the economic pandemic was hampering government’s efforts at undertaking more development projects.

“Only 1.5 million Ghanaians are paying taxes accurately. With this situation, what kind of development projects can we undertake?” she asked. According to her, the activity was mostly done deliberately and took different forms. These included under invoicing, smuggling of goods through unauthorized border routes, evasion of value-added-tax, among others.

Also, she said it posed a threat to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Throughout history, taxation has always been one of the most important policies for every government, regarding the raising of revenues for development projects but lapses of such magnitude, in the country’s tax policies, have led to government’s inability to carry out projects.