The incidence of indirect tax evasion In Offinso Municipality

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September, 2015
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Abstract
Government revenue has been reduced due to the continuous evasion of indirect tax creating a gap between expected revenues and the actual revenues derived from this source. Based on this, the study sought to investigate the incidence of indirect tax evasion in the Offinso Municipality by identifying the sources and administration of indirect tax, the mode of indirect tax evasion and the causes of indirect tax evasion. To achieve this, the descriptive and inferential study collated data from taxpayers, intermediaries and tax collection agents in the Offinso Municipality using a semi-structured questionnaire and interview guide . The determinant of the indirect tax evasion in the Municipal was examined using the binary logistic model. The result of the study showed that indirect tax es in the Municipal are predominantly sourced from hotels, traditional cooking centres, sales of food stuffs, retailers, wholesalers, agro-based businesses, manufacturers, and service sectors like hair dressers, and many others in the form of Excise Duty and the National Health Insurance Levy. Some of the major acts or modes of indirect tax evasion revealed by both the taxpayers and the revenue collection agencies were non-declaration of incomes or corporate profits, trade mispricing through faked invoices, bribing of tax officers, misclassification of commodities and others. Factors such as high tax rate, bureaucratic nature of tax process, low tax morale of taxpayers, low quality of the services in return for taxes and high level of corruption were all fou nd to positively influence tax evasion. Based on these findings, the study made several recommendations including the adoption of effective and efficient computerized system, general public education on tax compliance, organisation of monthly seminars on taxes, provision of training programmes for tax collection officials and publication of tax revenue and expense.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(KNUST), in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Masters of Business Administration(Accounting Option)
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