Board Chairman of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Mr. Ishmael Yamson has made passionate appeal to corporate organizations to avoid shirking their tax obligations to the nation.
He urged the corporate entities within the tax net to ensure that they fully pay up their taxes in order to enhance the development of the economy.
He explained that it would be in the interest of the companies to obey the tax regulations, and so implored them to respect the regulations noting that any attempt to evade their obligations will plunge the economy into deficits.
�Corporates must pay their taxes, must respect the tax clause of the country. In fact, it is in their own interest that they help the country manage properly because if the government doesn�t make enough money, you will have deficits and then, we all will suffer the consequences of high deficits.�
Also, outlining some resolutions to streamline the country�s tax net, Mr. Yamson appealed to government to widen the tax net to cover other businesses in the country because to him, �the more people you can bring into the tax net, the less you�ll need to extract from businesses.�
The Economist was also of the view that the taxes imposed on the companies are complex and expensive.
The complexities in the taxes, he stated, affect productivity in the country.
�We have a very complex tax regime�, which threatens the progress of businesses in the country, hence revealing a report by the World Bank which pointed to the poor performance of the economy on the international market.
�If you look at the World Bank cost of doing business report, we are not faring well, partly because we have a very complex and a very expensive tax regime.� he said.
He therefore called on government to review the tax net, stating that �the businesses must be allowed to prosper and then when they prosper, they will then be able and they will be in a position to be able to pay taxes...We must have a proper balance.�
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