Charging E-Levy on salaries sent via MoMo is discriminatory – Ken Ashigbey
The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications is advocating for a review of the application for the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) on salaries payment made via Mobile Money (MoMo).
Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber, Ken Ashigbey, believes that an aspect of the levy is not equitable and is discriminatory against employers, employees and consumers of electronic transfers.
In an interaction with Citi Business News, Mr Ashigbey said a review is critical in order to ensure all aspects of the E-Levy law are addressed before its implementation in May this year.
“Some of the challenges we have seen with the law as has been passed, which we hope to take up, are a few discriminatory elements within what’s happening. For example, if your salary is paid from a bank account it won’t attract the E-Levy, but if you are paid with mobile money, then it will attract the E-Levy. That definitely is not equitable and is discriminatory,” he is quoted to have said by Citi Business News.
“We hope that going forward, such issues will be addressed. We know that one of the elements of a good tax is that it should not be discriminatory especially due to the channels that one uses. All of these are things we will be working on with government to ensure that the unintended consequences do not come and derail government’s own digitalization agenda that it’s put up,” he added.
Meanwhile, after months of stiff opposition by the Minority in Parliament and a cross section of the Ghanaian public against the E-Levy, the Bill was passed by a Majority-backed House in March this year.
President Akufo-Addo, few days after the approval of the bill assented the controversial E-Levy bill into law.
The E-Levy will impose a 1.5 percent tax on all electronic transfers which will cover mobile money transfers, bank transfers and among others.
For mobile money transfers, the levy will cover transactions done between accounts on the same network, mobile money transfers from an account on one network to a recipient on another network.
It will also cover transfers from bank accounts to mobile money accounts, and transfers from mobile money accounts to bank accounts.
Meanwhile, consumers of electronic transfers will pay a 1.5 percent charge on all transfers that are more GH¢100 on a daily basis.
Ken Ashigbey, Chief Executive, Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications