Taxation is fundamentally a compulsory charge imposed on citizens for the development of the country.
It is, therefore, mandatory that every citizen pays tax and enjoy the benefit of the taxes collected from the masses.
It is safe to say that the more taxes that are collected, the more the country develops.
Taxes, more or less, impact on the economy when citizens contribute adequately to the kitty to support the development agenda of the government.
On the contrary, when few people pay taxes as against majority of citizens, the nation is the ultimate loser.
It is for this reason that countries around the world make strenuous efforts to widen the tax net to raise enough revenue for development. Besides, it helps to lessen the tax burden on the shoulders of the few people in society.
Obviously, small tax net would limit opportunities for raising enough revenue and that can limit what the government can do for the people.
It is in light of the above that we are excited that government is working to expand the tax net from 2 million tax payers to 16 million by the end of the year.
According to the Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who made the projection on Monday, the government would this year start to convert all National Identification Numbers to tax identifications numbers with the sole aim of roping in more people into the tax net in order to increase revenue for accelerated national development.
He said the government would also leverage technology to promote digitisation programmes that would be used in several areas to also raise revenue through the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
We applaud the government for the initiative which when diligently implemented would increase revenue tremendously as the current tax system could only cover only two million out of about 30 million populations. That is unfair.
It is important therefore, for everyone to support the government to expand the net in order to raise the required revenue for national development.
We urge the authorities not to relent in their effort in expanding the revenue net in order to capture a large number of tax payers so that the projected target of 16 million tax payers can be achieved by the close of the year.
Not only that, leakages in tax collection should also be seriously checked, otherwise, whilst efforts are being made to widen the tax net, others would do everything to undermine the collective effort of the country by siphoning the revenue generated through a wider tax net.
