Randolf Agyemang, a Senior Revenue Officer with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), has reiterated the call on Ghanaians above 18 years to obtain new Tax Identification Numbers (TIN).
This, according to him, would enable them to access services at certain critical public institutions.
Without TINs, persons, who seek to conduct business with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, Registrar-General’s Department, Lands Commission, Passport Office, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) cannot do so.
Others are the Courts, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembles and sub-divisions of government.
He said the acquisition of TINs would allow people to clear goods from ports or factories, register land, obtain tax clearance certificate from GRA to commence business and secure business permit issued by the Registrar-General or any local authority.
Mr Agyemang made the call over the weekend when GRA organised a workshop for members of the Parliamentary Press Corps (PPC) on taxation at Pampram in the Greater Accra Region.
He revealed that all Ghanaians working in the formal and the informal sectors need to voluntarily go to any GRA office and declare their income status.
He said all income-earners who fail to declare their income status with the GRA would be fished out and prosecuted beginning from October, this year.
He, therefore, asked all income-earners who want to avoid prosecution to voluntarily go to any GRA office during the grace period from May to September 30 to declare their income status.
He, however, said that after the grace period, defaulting income-earners would be prosecuted and made to pay all accumulated taxes and interests.
First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who opened the workshop, disclosed that all those who do not pay taxes are nation-wreckers, stressing that the introduction of TIN would help broaden the tax base of the country.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr