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Tax courts for Kumasi, Tamale in October

Tax courts are to be established in Kumasi and Tamale in October, this year.

The establishment of the courts in the two cities is to help speed up the resolution of tax-related disputes in the country.

They will be made up of civil and criminal divisions under the High Court and are expected to help clear the backlog of the many tax-related cases currently pending before the already established courts.

A Court of Appeal judge, Mrs Justice Margaret Welbourne, announced this when she represented the Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, at the opening of the 2013 tax conference in Accra yesterday.

Justice Welbourne, who chaired the function, said the Chief Justice preferred the resolution of tax disputes through alternative dispute resolution (ADR), adding that the process, when opted for, would go a long way to clear many backlog cases at the courts.

The three-day conference, which is on the theme: “Tax Revenue Mobilisation in an Oil and Gas Economy”, brought together tax experts from African countries, including Nigeria and South Africa.

It was organised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, Ghana (CITG) and the World Tax Service.

The President of the CITG, Mr Mike Kofi Afflu, in his welcoming remarks, said the conference provided a unique platform for tax professionals to meet in the interest of the taxpayer.

Explaining the rationale for the theme, he said revenue mobilisation was a major challenge for most oil and gas economies, as governments tended to concentrate more on the oil and gas sector, to the neglect of the other sectors of the economy.

“The lessons from other countries are there for us not to travel the same path,” he averred, and added that the CITG would, therefore, not only explore means of ensuring that tax strategies were aimed at the oil and gas industry but also examine how revenue from the resource could be channelled from the sector to other sectors of the economy.

A deputy minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, who represented the sector minister, lauded the CITG for sustaining the annual conference that was helping to shape Ghana’s oil and gas sector.

He expressed the government’s resolve to make proceeds from the oil resource trickle down to other sectors, hence the need for the participants to make recommendations that would guide the government in that direction.

Mr Ricketts-Hagan assured the participants that the CITG Bill would soon be laid before Parliament to give the institute the needed impetus.

By Sebastian Syme/DAILY Graphic/Ghana

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