Tax expert, Dr Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, has called on the government to as a matter of urgency suspend the Electronic Levy to pave way for broader stakeholder consultation to shape the policy.
Speaking with Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin, (22 November 2021) Ali-Nakyea indicated that the controversies surrounding the policy should prompt the government to withdraw it and allow inputs from industry players.
“It can be looked at in a way that it’ll work but, in the interim, it has to be withdrawn or suspended for that stakeholder consultation. The basics are these, one, in taxation you need to access and identify the tax base, you need to discuss the tax rate; you need to discuss the mode of collection or remittance, you need to discuss the kind of record-keeping that is expected because with taxation you may follow up with tax audit.”
“We need to look at the penalty regime because with any law of taxation if there are no penalties and people don’t comply, there’s nothing you can do so all these need to be factored in and also consider the possible loopholes that need to be blocked so that people don’t collect and keep it without remitting to government. So, any thought of implementing it must be suspended,” he said.
On Wednesday (17 November) the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced the E-Levy – a 1.75% tax on all electronic transactions in Ghana, as a measure to “rope in the informal sector into the tax net”.
Stakeholder consultation
Earlier, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications stakeholders in the telecommunications industry were not consulted before the announcement of the 1.75% electronic levy.
Speaking to Asaase News, Ken Ashigbey, the chief executive officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, said the government should have held broad stakeholder consultations to shape details of the tax policy.
He said the Chamber hopes to sit down with the government and consult with officials before the policy is implemented.
Nicholas Brown
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