The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, has indicated that the three revenue measures (taxes) introduced by the government are not new.
Parliament passed three new tax measures on Friday, March 31, 2023.
The three new taxes are: the Excise Duty Amendment Bill 2022, the Growth and Sustainability Levy Bill 2022, and the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2022.
Speaking in an interview with Kwesi Parker-Wilson on Oyerepa Breakfast Time, Monday, March 3, 2023 the minister said, the taxes were existing laws that the government implemented to increase Ghana’s tax-to-GDP ratio, which is woefully inadequate compared to that of other countries in the West African sub-region and the world.
“These (the taxes) are existing laws that we are implementing to get more money for the government for the development of the country. These taxes have been expanded to include people who were previously excluded.
“The tax-to-GDP ratio of Ghana is 13 percent, and so we saw the need to expand some of these taxes. What we have done will ensure that we get a tax-to-GDP ratio between 16 and 18 per cent so that we can get closer to the 20 per cent target.
“We have not increased the taxes; we have only included people and items who were not included in these taxes. If you take the Fiscal Responsibility Act which has now become the Growth and Sustainability Act, we have added mining companies and other who were previously not covered by the law,” he said.
The information minister added that the new Exercise Duty Levy has included some goods that were not previously covered by the previous law and the Income Tax Law has been amended to ensure that wealthy people pay more taxes.
He explained that the new taxes are also crucial to help secure board approval for the US$3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program after a staff-level agreement was reached late last year.
Watch the interview below in the video below:
