E-Levy to impose 1.5% charge on all electronic transactions
Minority files suit against E-Levy implementation
The Ghana Revenue Authority has insisted on its readiness to put in place measures to roll out the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy from May 1, 2022.
The levy despite stiff opposition against the tax policy since its announcement in November last year, President Akufo-Addo has assented the Bill into law after its approval by Parliament in March this year.
Commissioner-General of the GRA, Rev Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah in a JoyNews interview monitored by GhanaWeb, said that all the technologies needed to ensure the successful implementation of the E-Levy (Electrotonic Transfer Levy) have been acquired.
He added that the only thing left to do is for the Mobile Money Issuers (MMIs) and the Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) which includes Telecommunication Companies (Telcos) and Banks to integrate into the system.
“… this system is already available and the then application programme interface which is the APIs have also been made available. We have had several engagements with the various stakeholders in terms of what we call the charging entities (The EMIs, the banks, the Telcos) who will be charging the money and transferring the money to the consolidated fund through the Ghana.gov platform. And so, what the entities will have to do is to ensure that they have taken the necessary protocols and will be able to interface with the system.
“The system is available, the API is available, an end-to-end test has been done successfully with a number of transactions that have gone through successfully without any failure. So we are confident that it beholds on the charging entities to do the integration,” he said.
The Commissioner-General explained that the system for the implementation of the levy is a common platform which has been designed to identify transactions that need to be charged.
“Currently, the team has been camped in a particular location where anybody who has a challenge as far as the integration done is also working with them,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ningo-Prampram lawmaker, Sam Nartey George, has indicated that the government is not ready to implement the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) by the May 1, 2022 deadline.
The MP added that "the architecture for the system is still not complete and has not been given to the industry players (MNOS and EMIS) less than ten days to start of [the] project. No stress test has been carried out on the intended system to ascertain (the) robustness of the infrastructure to be used."
Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, Commissioner-General of GRA