The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced a revenue target of Ghc60billion for collection by the close of 2021.
This is in spite of the spectre of the Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) hanging over the country and its businesses.
Speaking to journalists in Accra, Acting Commissioner General, Amishadai Owusu Amoah said the required strategies are already in place to achieve the very ambitious target.
The new target is up from GH₵ 45,338.69 million which the Authority mobilized in 2020. The amount broke the original revenue target of GH₵ 42,769.50million in spite of the impact of Covid-19 in 2020.
“I am delighted to announce that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative impact on businesses, the GRA was able to meet its 2020 revised revenue target. The Authority was tasked to collect a revised tax revenue target of GH₵ 42,769.50; as of December 2020, we had collected GH₵ 45,338.69 million exceeding the budget by GH₵ 2,569.19 million thus, with a positive deviation of 6.0%.” the GRA Boss said.
He added “This performance represents a nominal growth rate of 3.3% over the same period in 2019. In 2020, domestic revenue grew by a nominal rate of 2.8% while Customs collection grew by 4.5%.
The Authority was initially budgeted to collect total tax revenue of GH₵ 47,253.95 million for the 2020 fiscal year. This represented a 7.6% growth over the actual tax revenue collections of GH₵ 43,907.12 million for the 2019 fiscal year.
However, as a result of the impact of COVID-19 global pandemic, the budget was revised to GH₵ 42,769.50 million.
The authority had targeted to haul in GH₵ 22,153.64 billion in direct taxes but managed to raise GH₵ 22, 212.66. For Indirect Taxes, it had targeted GH₵ 9,698.66 but managed to raise GH₵ 10,583.37.
In the area of Customs, the GRA Boss said his outfit targeted GH₵ 10,917.20 but was able to raise GH₵ 12,583.37.