The Ghana Revenue Authority has exceeded its revenue collection targets for the first quarter. The collections were boosted mainly by Customs and VAT. Whilst Customs grossed some 775 million Ghana cedis, almost 13 percent higher than its target, VAT collections came to 305 million Ghana cedis, nearly 6 percent better than what it set out to collect. VAT and NHIL on imports especially pushed up revenues of the customs division. VAT went up by 18 percent whiles NHIL also went up by 18 percent. Taxes on petroleum products only when up by 9 percent. Taxes collected by customs however exclude earnings from crude oil exports from the Jubilee Field. Though indirect taxes or VAT witnessed a substantial increase in terms of collections, the Communication Service Tax went down by 9 percent. Of all the tax types collected it was only the Internal Revenue Service, now classified as the Domestic Tax Division that marginally fell short of its target. It was able to realize 685 million Ghana cedis about 3 percent down from its target of 703 million Ghana cedis. Officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority attribute the substantial increase in customs collections to measures introduced at the ports to plug revenue leakages. The GRA is hoping to collect some 7.5 billion Ghana cedis, about 4 percent from what it got last year. Source: Joy Business/Ghana