Tax Evasion in the Informal Sector: Ghana's Case

Tax has been with us since civilisation begun. The principal duty of a government is the role it has to play to bring development to its citizenry. In many ways, the raising of tax revenue is the most central activity of any government. Most fundamentally, revenue from taxation is what literally sustains the existence of the government, providing the funding for everything, from social programmes to infrastructural investment. Taxation also plays an important role in shaping the distribution of benefits, as it is the basis for redistribution from those with the highest incomes to those most in need, and allows government to encourage certain activities and discourage others by altering their relative prices. The extent of tax evasion is extremely difficult to determine in any country, especially in the developing countries. Attempts have been made in the developed economies to estimate the extent of its occurrence. This book therefore explains the concept of tax evasion, means bywhich it is perpetrated and challenges faced in dealing with tax evasion as a country. This piece is meant to extend the education on tax evasion across sectors of the economy.