NGO stakeholders urge GRA to tackle property tax challenges to aid compliance

Chairperson of Education and Training at the Chartered Institute of Taxation Ghana, Francis Timore Boi, Esq., has urged the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to address the challenges surrounding property taxation to ensure effective compliance from taxpayers.

According to Mr. Timore Boi, key challenges like lack of data, weak enforcement regimes, and low education are reasons many property taxpayers refuse to comply with the payment.

He was speaking at the National Tax Conference organised by Oxfam in Ghana on Thursday, August 29, 2024, on the theme: Improving Progressive Property Taxation and Tax Compliance.

He observed that central to the issues with the collection of property tax is related to data ownership, as many people are unaware of property tax obligations, with only a few companies aware.

“I have a lady friend who is a National Service Personnel and a tenant, and she received a text message that her property has been identified… and then she should go online and then go and register.”

“She doesn’t even have any property yet she receives a text message that she should come forward and register. So clearly, there was a problem of data. Even though we have identified the properties, we may not even know who owns the data,” Mr. Timore Boi narrated.

“Trust me, many, many people do not even know that they are supposed to pay property tax, so very few people who know this are the companies, but the majority of you do not even know,” he added.

Chief Executive Officer of the Private Enterprise Federation, Nana Osei-Bonsu, underscored the lack of equitable and fair tax distribution as another challenge regarding property taxation.of the Private Enterprise Federation, Nana Osei-Bonsu, underscored the lack of equitable and fair tax distribution as another challenge regarding property taxation.

He explained that the only way people will be compliant with the payment of property taxes is when the taxes are equitable and fair.

“I don’t begrudge the GRA because their mandate is to do this and collect it., but the advocacy is to make it neutral, make it equitable, and make sure that the businessperson pays their fair share.”

Mr. Osei-Bonsu noted that there is a need for the tax collectors to work on the inaccuracies in the tax assessment with accurate data.

“So as I said, the parameters that assess the tax liability should be streamlined so that everybody can understand. It’s not only the tax collector; everybody should be able to understand.”

For his part, Program Coordinator of Friends of the Nation and NGO, Solomon Kusi-Ampofo, also noted the lack of transparency and accountability on the part of GRA, which makes taxpayers reluctant to pay their property taxes.

“For me, I believe that if we increase in terms of providing education on how we are using our taxes, it becomes more incentive for people to pay their taxes.”

Mr. Kusi-Ampofo further posited that lack of institutional collaboration also makes the data collection, assessment, and evaluation difficult for GRA.

He therefore admonished the government to invest in local government authorities to ensure proper data collection as well as mandating them to collect taxes too.

Touching on possible solutions to the challenges, Lawyer Francis suggested the need for GRA to clean the data and collaborate with the judicial services to ensure enforcement of the tax laws as well as compliance with the tax payments.

“So we were proposing earlier that we should have maybe some special district courts where people can be dragged over there.”

Mr. Kusi Boafo suggested that the GRA collaborate with the Ministry of Local Government and district assemblies to monitor and collect property rates while identifying landlords for effective and efficient collection of rent tax.

“If they are working with the district assemblies, they know exactly who the owners are and what the locations of these areas are,” he added.

The National Tax Conference was organised by Oxfam in Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, together with other partners like Friends of the Nation (FON), Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), and the Northern Sector on Action Awareness Centre (NORSAAC).