Income Tax Administration In Ghana: Perceived Implementation Challenges

In recent times, the focus of tax research has shifted from income tax compliance to Value Added Tax compliance. Meanwhile, the legislature on some occasions subject persons to what it calls income tax by reference to sums which do not represent income in any accounting or economic sense, or even in respect of sums which the person concerned has not received. This makes income tax administration challenging than in the case of value Added Tas This paper therefore seeks to gain an understanding of similarities and differences in the overall quantitative assessment and qualitative content of personal income tax and corporate income tax, from the perspectives of income taxpayers. For this purpose, the author examined a total of 259 Ghanaian income taxpayers; 174 personal income taxpayers and 85 corporate income taxpayers. Moreover, the author measured knowledge, attitudes and emotional reactions of personal income taxpayers and corporate income taxpayers towards income taxation. The results indicated that overall, income tax was negatively evaluated by both taxpayers. However, corporate income taxpayers occasioned a larger number of negative attitudes towards income tax, had more knowledge on income tax obligations, and conveyed more negative emotions than personal income taxpayers. The paper argues that findings from personal income tax research cannot be directly adapted to the context of corporate income tax