GRA ready to implement E-Levy – Commissioner-General Ammishaddai
Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Reverend Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, has said the GRA stands ready to implement the newly introduced electronic transaction levy (E-Levy).
According to him, while Parliament is going through the necessary legislation processes for the introduction of the levy, the GRA is also looking at ways to successfully execute the implementation of the levy.
Adding that, there are a lot of things that have to be done [by GRA] prior to the implementation of the E-Levy.
“There are a lot of things to be done before the commissioning of the E-Levy and fortunately for me I have seen it [E-Levy] being collected in other countries. So while Parliament is going through the legislation processes, we are also looking at ways to execute it successfully.
“We will be bringing it alongside e-commerce and e-gaming as part of measures to growing revenue for the nation, the policies are already there, just that there are some small changes we need to do before we implement them.
“Our key role is to implement the policy and to ensure that we are able to rake in the necessary revenue for the development of the company,” he stated speaking during a Personality Profile interview on Accra-based radio station Joy FM.
The E-Levy, per estimates is expected to rake in some GHS 7 billion in revenue for government.
According to the the Finance Minister, the introduction of the E-Levy forms part of a number of measures to widen the tax net and rope in the country’s informal sector and ensure that all Ghanaians pay their fair share of taxes and thereby increase government’s revenue.
Some economic analysts have argued that the introduction of the E-Levy forms part of government’s efforts to close the country’s widening deficit by raising more revenue, but with a projected deficit of GHS 37 billion on cash basis for 2022 [GHS 137.5 in expenditure as against GHS 100.5 in revenues to be raised], the GHS 7 billion to be raised through the E-Levy seems insignificant in the narrowing of the country’s fiscal deficit.
Government has also been cautioned by the various CSOs and think tanks in the country of the danger of introducing the E-Levy in that it can derail the progress made by government in its digitisation and financial inclusion agenda as well as promote a cash economy.
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Meanwhile, erstwhile Minister for Finance, Seth Terkper has described the E-Levy as “the most nuisance of all nuisance taxes.”
According to the erstwhile Minister for Finance, the E-Levy is worse than the Energy Sector Recovery Levy (ESLA), Value Added Tax (VAT) and other taxes introduced by the NDC administration which were described as nuisance taxes.
His assertion is based on the premise that unlike the E-Levy which taxes both consumption and capital of businesses, the so-called nuisance taxes by the NDC focused solely on taxing consumption.
“Yes, I agree with the position that E-Levy is the most nuisance of all nuisance taxes, because for instance concerning mobile money, not all mobile money transactions is consumption, some of the transactions are actually capital of business, so its a tax on capital.
“The E-Levy can’t be compared to the VAT or any other straight levies imposed now because doing so shows misunderstanding of why VAT was introduced. Unlike the VAT these levies tax capital and block input tax credit refunds. VAT is a consumption tax and it was to deduct taxes paid on input and capital so that the costs are not transferred to consumers.
“E-Levy is different from VAT because it tax capital,” he stated in an interview.
