A senior lecturer and economist at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako has task the government to put the tax generated monies into good use to influence citizens paying their taxes.
In an interview with JoyNews on Saturday, March 26, 2022, Dr. Agyapomaa suggested ways by which the government can generate internal revenue to aid the development of the country.
She said, though there is the need for the government to enforce tax payment laws, they also need to put into accountable use the already collected taxes for the citizens to see the reason why they need to pay taxes to the government.
She again cited an advanced countries like U.K and the U.S where many people pay taxes, but yet their government ensure there is enforcement of laws governing tax payments to get more people pay their taxes.
“And in every country, we have rational human beings. People will not want to pay taxes if there is nothing pushing them to pay the taxes.
“Even in the U.S and U.K where we see a lot of people paying taxes, the government ensure that they enforce the tax rules. It’s very important that as we are asking people to pay property taxes, as we asking them to file their taxes, we backed them with some measures to ensure enforcement.
Dr. Agyapomaa in her interview again made mention of need why people should be paying taxes and why these taxes need to be put into good and accountable use.
“We are here fighting against borrowing externally and we are the same people who also don’t want to be paying taxes, So how is the government going to get revenue to undertake it obligations in the country?
“That said I think as citizens we should be able to see what this taxes are doing for us…so if we are paying taxes and we are not seeing what these taxes are doing for us, then it will be difficult for you to get people on board.” Said Dr. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako.
To her accountability of taxes is the only way that will ginger the citizenry to fulfill their tax obligations.
