Mr Patrick Frimpong-Danso, Office of the Commissioner for the Domestic Tax Revenue Division (DTRD) of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), said this at a day’s workshop on digitisation and voluntary tax compliance for women in business in Accra yesterday.

The programme organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) with support from the Australian High Commission, seeks to sensitise women on the legal framework for conducting business in Ghana.

It was under the theme: “Promoting voluntary compliance among women in business through sensitisation of the digitisation of tax processes.”

Mr Danso said proper record keeping was important and made it easier for business owners to file tax returns and grow their businesses.

He said it also helped businesses to maintain accurate financial records but many businesses had failed to implement the integral process.

“These are the things we the tax people look at. We look at evidence on the paper.  If you don’t keep proper records, it makes it difficult for you to know whether your business is growing or not growing,” he added.

Mr Danso advised to adopt strategies that will help them to effectively compete and make profit.

According to him, to ensure increase voluntary tax compliances among businesses, GRA had deployed a lot of services online and mobile applications that enabled businesses to track their tax returns and computation for easy filing.

“The digitalisation that we have agenda to take place has made easier for tax payers to be able to go to their taxes, submit their tax returns very easily,” he stated.

He said GRA would collaborate with the media to intensify its awareness creation on the need for voluntary tax compliance.

The Senior Programme and Research Officer of GII, Mrs Mary Awelana Addah, said the workshop which formed part of the International Women’s Day was to celebrate women for their enormous contributions and challenges they faced on issues of taxation so that they could identify and report corruption of these areas to the appropriate quarters.

“If the SDGs goals 5 and 10 are going to be achieved, then the world including Ghana must make conscious efforts to protect women’s businesses by addressing the challenges pertaining to them and also provide the necessary information to help them keep their businesses alive,” she stated.