DON'T REVERT RENT TAX (PAGE 20)

LANDLORDS and landladies at Asamankese, capital of the West Akyem Municipality, have appealed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to start tax collection on rent from the beginning of 2009 instead of reversing it to the previous years.
The landlords and landladies, who own different types of houses in the municipality, said since they had just been educated on the implementation of the rent tax, the IRS should spare them payment of the tax for the previous years.
According to them, that would prevent them from suffering from additional financial difficulties, since they had already been paying taxes in the form of property rate to the district assembly and the various stool lands in the municipality over the years.
The landlords and landladies expressed the concern at the fifth “Revenue Week”, a period set aside by the IRS for tax education, which was organised by the service at Asamankese at the weekend.
The event, which was on the theme, “Enhancing Tax Compliance: The Responsibility of the Income Earning Property Owners”, was used to educate them on the implementation of the rent tax, which takes effect from the previous years.
The landlords and landladies claimed that most of them were pensioners who survived on the incomes from their houses.
They acknowledged that although the tax on rent incomes had been in existence for many years, lack of education on it had made its implementation unknown to them.
For that reason, they said any effort by the IRS to plough taxes on past advances paid by tenants to them would worsen their already deplorable financial situation.
“Since we have just been educated on the rent tax, the government and the IRS must hesitate to apply the rent tax law to those of us in the informal sector,” they appealed.
Opanin Kwame Oduro, 87, one of the landlords, claimed that although he had collected various sums of rent advances from tenants in the past, part of the money was used to renovate his building for the occupants with a portion going to the municipal assembly and the stool lands as property rate.
Mr Stephen Yeboah, also a landlord, stated that since landlords and landladies had just been made aware of the rent tax, the IRS should start the collection of the tax only from the beginning of this year.
“My father and my grandfather did not pay tax on rent to the government but paid tax on property to the then local council and the Stool Lands Department,” Mr Yeboah stated.
He, therefore, urged the IRS to forgo the collection of rent tax from the previous years.
Responding to the concerns of the landlords and landladies, the Asamankese District Manager of the IRS, Mr Lawrence Kusi-Adu, assured them of forwarding their concerns to the authorities for redress.
Early on, Mr Kusi-Adu had educated the property owners on rent income and rent tax and appealed to them to comply with the tax law as part of their contributions to nation building.