Trade facilitation consulting firm, West Blue says it is prepared to support government identify and block loopholes in its revenue collection chain.
The IT Company is currently providing technical assistance to the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority for the National Single Window project.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Valentina Mintah, made this known when the parliamentary select committee on trade paid the company a visit to understand their operation.
“With the objective or vision of this government is to reduce the over burdensome taxes of duties, but at the same time you need to ensure that you have efficient collection of revenues to be able to fill that gap and also exceed to have excess to do what government needs to do” Miss Mintah told journalists.
Taxes such as the 17.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on financial services and domestic air tickets will be scrapped, while others such as the corporate income tax will be reduced from 25% to 20%.
Also, the special import levy, the 17.5% VAT on imported medicines and the 5% VAT on real estate are expected to be abolished under the new government.
Meanwhile, the 17.5% VAT for small enterprises is expected to be reduced to 3% flat rate.
Some taxes at the country’s port are also to be streamlined to lessen tax burden on freight forwarders.
“What we are here to do is, working with government to use the system to be able to identify the patterns and trends, to identify loopholes to make projections; if for example this exemption is going to be introduced, what is the impact on the economy,” Miss Mintah noted.
She added that, “To be able to work on the predictions, using business intelligence reporting tools to work together to be able to overcome the shortfall that might be realized due to the removal of the taxes on duties.”
The Chairman of the parliamentary select committee on trade, Titus Glover promised parliament’s support to aid the company in its operation.
