TRIBUNALS ON TAX DISPUTES TO BE SET UP (PAGE 20)

THE government is drawing up a programme for the establishment of Tax Tribunals to expedite action on the resolution of disputes between tax authorities and corporate institutions, especially those in the oil industry.
The president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, Mr E.T. Asamoah, who made this known at the launch of the Taxation Week of the institute said the Tax Tribunals would be under the Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism.
He said the tribunals would enhance fairness and equity to help remove the deep suspicion that existed between the revenue agencies and the business community.
He appealed to tax practitioners to keep abreast of the tax laws of the country since they were the liaison between the business community and the revenue agencies.
Mr Ali-Nakyea Abdallah, a tax consultant, who spoke on; “The challenges facing tax practitioners’’, said tax administrators tended to criminalise first-time taxpayers and practitioners who encouraged them (taxpayers) to pay their taxes.
He called for an incentive system to reward taxpayers who voluntarily responded to their tax obligations without giving the government the option of casting its net wider.
He said there was the need to strike a balance between the goals of tax administrators who represented the government and tax practitioners who represented taxpayers to ensure harmony and respect for both parties.
He explained that the challenges arose where the tax administrator formed an adverse opinion that the tax practitioner’s aim was to protect a taxpayer from paying taxes.
Mr Abdallah, therefore, called for constant interaction between the two parties to iron out their differences through collaborative training programmes.
On dispute resolution, Mr Abdallah said the situation where taxpayers were compelled to make down payment of 30 per cent of the amount in dispute before filing a petition at the court for resolution was not fair to the taxpayer, and called for an amendment to the law.
This, he said, was because a taxpayer who was running at a loss could not mobilise such an amount before asking the courts to judge his/her case.