The President, John Evans Atta Mills, has chided the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for narrowing its tax net and denying the nation much needed funds for development. Sounding unhappy about the performance of the agency, President Mills charged on the IRS to widen its tax net to robe in more areas. “As the economy develops, you will find out that there would be shift from indirect taxes to direct taxes - IRS. Now I find it very difficult to understand, even though IRS may be meeting its target, I do not think even IRS is collecting as much as it can.” President Atta Mills was speaking during a visit to the Tema office of Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on Tuesday. He noted that there are people in the country riding in “very, very expensive cars” and others living in plush mansions and questioned if those people are indeed paying the right taxes to the state. “Look at all these buildings which are springing up, where does the money come from? Don’t we have any intelligence to be able to know whether the people who are putting up all these high-rising edifices are paying the income taxes?” The President remarked that persons who often invade taxes are, ironically, the same people who go about complaining of bad roads, poor schools, and lack of motivation for teachers among other bottlenecks. However, President Mills commended CEPS for improved revenue collection in the first quarter of the year. CEPS exceeded its revenue target for the first quarter of the year by over 12 per cent, which the president said vindicates government’s position that revenue agencies such as CEPS could do better. “There was either something that you were doing which you have stopped or something that you were not doing which you are now doing…we are watching your progress with very keen interest,” President Mills noted. The Commissioner of CEPS, Major General Carl Modey appealed to government to address logistical constraints and poor working conditions of personnel to motivate them to improve their performance. He requested that at least three per cent of their collection would be retained to cater for those logistical constraints. Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com