Establish specialised courts to deal with property rate payment defaulters – Tax analyst

Tax Analyst Francis Timore Boi is proposing the establishment of specialised courts to deal with persons who fail to pay property tax to their local assemblies.

According to him, failure to pay property taxes should, in extreme cases, result in the seizure of individual properties and prosecution, citing practices in other jurisdictions.

In his view, the potential benefits of increased property tax revenue are enormous, noting that it could significantly reduce local assemblies’ dependence on central government for funding.

Speaking to Citi Business News on the sidelines of the National Tax Conference organised by Oxfam, Francis Timore Boi stressed the need for enforcement of the tax measure by local assemblies.

“Taxation is not a donation. It’s not like a church where you call people to come and give as and when they can. It is enforcement which will bring the tax revenue.

“The problem is that when the district assemblies even do their assessments in the past when they were serving bills to individuals and companies, when you don’t pay nothing happens to you… there is no enforcement. In some jurisdictions, the local council can even enforce the payment by attaching your property.

“They can even seize your property and say you have defaulted. We are calling for special courts to be established so that for those who don’t comply with the law, the court deals with them. District Assemblies should be able to drag people to court for non-compliance to the local government act for the payment of property taxes.”

For the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the issue of low compliance with property rate payments is considered an attitudinal problem.

Assistant Commissioner of GRA with the Policy and Programmes Department, Dominic Naab, said citizens need to see their taxes at work.

He however disagrees with implementing tough measures to increase property tax payments stressing the need for more education.

“We have tried this kind of path before where we used brute force to collect taxes but we think that it hasn’t helped over the years. What we should rather be doing is encouraging compliance.

The National Tax Conference was held under the theme “Improving Progressive Property Taxation and Tax Compliance: The Key to Increased Domestic Revenue Mobilization in Ghana.”