E-Levy is a game-changer – Government
E-Levy in the interest of the public – President Akufo-Addo
The Ministry of Finance has indicated that government may be unable to honor critical payment obligations if revenue generation measures are not supported.
According to a deputy minister of finance, John Kumah, the proposed Electronic Transaction Levy is critical to enable government to generate domestic revenue to undertake government policies.
In an interaction with Citi Business News, John Kumah described the E-Levy as a game-changer that requires support from the citizens and further debunked assertions that government may not be able to pay workers’ salaries in the next three months.
“First of all, it is not true that government cannot pay workers in the next three months, let me give a firm assurance that workers are going to receive their pay. On the point made by the Speaker of parliament [Alban Bagbin, I think that he made a very genuine call to all members of parliament that we must move parliament beyond partisanship and support government domestic revenue mobilization programs, especially the E-Levy so that we don’t create a very difficult financial constraint for the government,” he is quoted by Citibusinessnews.com
“Parliament has passed the 2022 appropriation bill which means that government has to spend, and yet a key critical component of the revenues that will help you to spend (E-Levy) is being opposed in parliament. So, the Speaker has expressed a genuine concern to the effect that if we don’t support government it may get to a time that it will become difficult for critical payments of government to be fulfilled.”
John Kumah said this during an interview at the inauguration of the Ashanti regional youth Parliament.
E-Levy impasse
Since the announcement of the E-Levy, government has insisted the tax measure is necessary to generate some GH¢6.9 billion in revenue for Ghana in 2022.
Although a decision to approve the E-Levy is yet to materialize in Parliament, the Minority caucus has vowed to kick against approving the E-Levy citing it will place more hardship on the ordinary citizen.
Also, a cross-section of the public has bemoaned the introduction of the tax measure.
The E-levy is a new tax measure introduced by government in the 2022 Budget on basic transactions related to digital payments and electronic transactions aimed at widening the tax net and increasing revenue.
The tax measure, if approved, would place a charge of 1.75 percent on all electronic transactions that are more than GH¢100 daily (24 hours).
This will cover mobile money payments, ATM withdrawals, inward remittances among others.
John Kumah is a deputy finance minister