Government will continue to fall short of its revenue from tax collection, if waivers and tax incentives to foreign companies are not strictly monitored.
This is according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS).
According to the institute such, incentives and waivers are often abused by foreign companies if not properly monitored.
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) failed to meet its target of raising 24. 5 billion cedis at the end of August 2018 but rather managed to mobilize a total of 22.7 billion cedis representing a revenue shortfall of about 1.8 billion cedis.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Executive Directors of the IFS, Professor Newman Kusi said government must strictly monitor such incentives.
“Such tax concessions and exemptions constitute leakages in the tax system and its time that the government should look at all these things as there is the need to increase the tax base in the country”, he stated.
He added that although government uses tax incentives to attract the participation of more foreign companies in the country, the Ministry of Finance must not allow such incentives to be misused.
“Some of these things came about as a result of government entering into what we call stability agreements for these companies and also government using them as an incentive to attract in foreign direct investments and the likes, but the fact of the matter is that these things are being abused and it is time that government takes a crucial look at them”.
citinewsroom.com