Accra — Ghana wants to shake up the way it collects tax with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) telling the government that it’s not raising sufficient income. The West African nation needs to increase revenue as it plans to raise spending and reduce debts, which the IMF said remain at risk of distress. At the same time, Ghana is finalising a $1bn bailout programme it entered with the Washington-based lender in April 2015 and has to meet targets for fiscal consolidation after years of chronic overspending. Ghana should pursue its fiscal goals by raising collections as spending on fixed investments, such as infrastructure, are already too low, according to the IMF. More than two thirds of businesses in the country are in the informal sector and will be brought into the tax net, said Kwasi Bobie-Ansah, an acting assistant commissioner at the Ghana revenue authority. "Ghana does not necessarily need to legislate new taxes, but must find ways of widening the net," Edem Harrison, a re...
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