E-Levy to widen country's tax net
E-levy has been a failure, Mahama
Former President, John Dramani Mahama, has described the most talked-about tax measure, Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) as the most nuisance tax introduced by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He stated that the E-Levy has not been able to meet its monthly revenue target since its implementation.
Speaking on the economy on Thursday, June 30, 2022, John Dramani Mahama indicated that in May, government was able to rake in only GH¢54 million against a target of GH¢475 million that was projected.
He highlighted that the National Democratic Congress when voted into power in 2024 will scrap this newly introduced tax.
He said, “For the entire month of May, the much-vaunted E-Levy, which was rammed down the throats of Ghanaians, yielded a paltry GHS 54 million against a target of GHS 475 million for that month representing only 11.3%. The month of June has not offered any sign of improvement as only about GHS 7.1 million had been collected by the first week of the month."
"These figures demonstrate that so far, the E-Levy has been a spectacular failure and has become the mother of all nuisance taxes and I wish to reiterate my earlier promise that we will abolish it in the very first budget statement to be presented under the next NDC administration,” John Dramani Mahama stated.
It would be recalled that government in March this year
imposed a 1.5% charge on all electronic transfers above GH¢100.
The tax policy is a move by the goverment to widen the country's tax net.
Meanwhile, the charging entities for the E-Levy are telecommunications companies, commercial banks, special deposit-taking institutions and Payment Service Providers (PSPs).
ESA/FNOQ
