Government to roll out community engagement on E-Levy, says Kumah
The deputy minister for finance's comment comes in the wake of the apathy that has greeted electronic transactions since the rollout of the E-Levy on 1 May
Government will soon roll out community engagement on the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) to allay the fears of the public on the law, deputy minister for finance John Kumah has said.
Kumah’s comment comes in the wake of the apathy that has greeted electronic transactions since the rollout of the E-Levy on 1 May.
Speaking to Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday ( 6 May), Kumah said “Obviously, that is a major concern, we don’t want people’s use of electronic transfers to go down. We will continue to engage the public. We know that many of the anxiety they have is not founded on the tenets of the E-Levy law.”
“And so we will continue to engage them to understand that using MoMo today means helping to build your country and so let us understand that we don’t have to stop using E-Levy or MoMo.”
“… of course, we are going to do a lot of community engagement and also improve digital transactions in the country, so that we can have many more people paying the E-Levy,” he said.
GRA refunds “unintended” deductions
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has begun refunding wrongful deductions a few days into the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy).
A cross section of the public lamented what they described as excess charges after carrying out mobile money transactions below the GHC100 threshold.
Some Ghanaians who spoke to Asaase News have expressed excitement at the development.
Below is a notice to a customer whose unintended deduction was refunded.
Timeline
Meanwhile, a tax lawyer, Theophilus Tawiah has suggested to the government to come out with clear timelines for the implementation of the Electronic Transaction Levy ( E- Levy) if any.
Tawiah believes this could help reduce likelihood of people not patronising mobile money and other payment platforms due to the implementation of the E-Levy.
Speaking with Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Thursday (5 May ), he said, “So it is something that, for me, I expect the government to communicate clearly through the citizens. At the moment it is unclear whether this tax system is going to be a permanent feature of our tax system.”
“It will be good to have clear timelines for which this tax will be imposed. If you look at the banking sector for example, we have stabilisation levy which is bound by time. If we have something like that it is going to reduce the effect of people not wanting to use mobile money and other payment platforms.”
“So that must be clearly communicated. We must have a definite period where all of us are shouldering the tax obligation … because if that is not the case it is going to have distortionary effect on the populous and it is going to have a negative effect even though it is going to yield revenue,” he added.
He also called on the government to address the issue of refunds with the implementation of the E-Levy.
Listen to Theophilus Tawiah in the audio below:
Fred Dzakpata
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