The Ghana Revenue Authority has denied an accusation by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia that it “harasses” businesses to meet its “unrealistic” revenue targets.

In a recent discussion with the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) to seek their ideas to draft a campaign manifesto for the 2024 elections, the flagbearer of the governing New Patriotic Party, raised concerns about the "harassment" of businesses by GRA officials to meet the state tax collector's "unrealistic" revenue target.

“They are harassing businesses", Dr Bawumia observed, explaining: "That harassment is coming from the sort of target that are created at their office".

"They are setting unrealistic targets", Dr Bawumia complained, noting: "And this is because the tax base is so narrow. You say to them, this is your target for this month, and they are trying to figure out, ‘Where do I go’".

“Then for them, it is very easy. You go back to where you had it the last time. You go to taxpayers, the people who are already paying taxes, and then you have to come up with a new reason why they should pay more and, so, you come up with all sorts of stuff", Dr Bawumia illustrated.

Dr. Bawumia promised to deal with that situation should he win the presidency.

"Because of the harassment and the need to make money, we are going to start with a clean slate in 2025. And that is why in 2025, we are going to grant a tax amnesty to all businesses and individuals and start afresh", he proposed.

“So, we are going to start the new system, it’s a flat tax system so we are going to wipe the slate clean for every individual and business.”

Responding to the accusation, the Assistant Commissioner of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Emelia Assam, who spoke at the Oxfam Tax Dialogue on Thursday, 21 March 2024, said: “There is no harassment with tax collection”, stressing: “GRA staff don’t go out to harass”. 

“No tax officer who has been authorised to go out is expected to harass any client, in the sense that, we have some compliance issues that we deal with every day. One is every taxpayer must register, failure to register, we can send you a notification to appear. We can lock up your place if you fail to respond to these notifications. We have duties to issue invoices for people who are registered to pay VAT.”