The Awareness of Employees on Tax Relief Scheme in Ghana

Abstract

Tax relief is a legally approved allowance intended to reduce one’s taxable income and thereby lessen the tax burden. It is intended to cushion the effect of tax on the individual and to make it bearable for him or her to pay the tax. Since tax reliefs have as an objective to lessen the tax burden of the tax payer, governments all over the world have come out with different tax relief schemes. Ghana government is no exception to this. Unfortunately, this scheme which is supposed to lessen the tax burden has not been taken advantage of by tax payers in Ghana, according to the Minister of finance of Ghana. This whipped the interest of the researchers to find out the awareness of tax payers particularly, employees on the tax relief schemes in Ghana. The population of the study comprised all employees of the private and public sectors of Ghana. The respondents were purposively selected from Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions of Ghana. Primary data was collected to serve as the main source of data through the use of self-structure questionnaire. The researchers distributed one hundred and fifty (150) questionnaires each in Greater Accra and Ashanti regions and one hundred (100) in Brong Ahafo Region. Two hundred and nineteen (219) questionnaires were received and used for the study. The study found that employees are aware of the tax relief schemes available to employees in Ghana, only that few have accessed or claimed from the scheme before.
Key words: Tax; Employees; Tax reliefs; Tax payers