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The government is to introduce a measure to ease the filing and payment of tax to boost its revenue generation.
The mobile tax application system would help companies and individuals to file their tax returns and pay same without reporting to the Ghana Revenue Authority for the same purpose.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, announcing this in Accra during the inauguration of Academic University College, said the move was to boost tax compliance and enhance the ease of doing business.
Academic University College established four years ago with the vision to produce innovative entrepreneurial students is focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.
Dr Bawumia who was the guest speaker, said some individuals findit difficult to file their tax returns and pay same and the new tax application would help address that.
“Next week, Iam going to launch a new application for the Ghana Revenue Authority which will allow people with tax identification numbers to be able to file their taxes and paysame on their mobile phones and get tax clearance certificate automatically generated for them,” he said.
He said the application was simple, very accessible and both the literate and not so literate population could use it.
The Vice President said the government’s digital initiative was yielding positive results, and enhancing the ease of doing business in the country.
Previously, he said only four per cent of the adult population had tax identification numbers, but now 85 per cent of the adult population had tax identification numbers through the issuance of Ghana Card.
Dr Bawumia said the Paperless Port System had helped to facilitate the clearing of goods at the ports and the establishment of the Ghana.gov, a one-stop portal, where all government services could be accessed and pay for them, was boosting businesses in the country.
The Vice President indicated that 1,052 of the government agencies had been unbounded on the portal.
Dr Bawumia stressed that the implementation of the National Identification System, which had helped to provide every Ghanaian Ghana Card with a unique identity, was helping to fish out ghost names on government payroll.
The Vice President averred that Ghana, was one of the fastest mobile money markets in Africa, due to the implementation of the Mobile Money Interoperability System, which allowed transfer of money from one network to another.
“Government has chosen for the country to be part of the industrial revolution and made a decision not to be left behind, and as a matter of urgency, government was pursuing technology not for the sake of technology, but pursuing to solve problems” Dr Bawumia said.
He said the successful economic transformation of every nation in the 21st century would significantly rely on the provision of tertiary education in digital and information technology.
That, he said, was responsible for the global growing demand for high quality and relevant tertiary education which concentrate on teaching the youth with problem solving skills, harnessing the various human and technology resources at their disposal.
The Vice President dismissed the argument that automation and digitalisation would result in job losses, indicating that global studies proved otherwise.
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