The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu has reacted to Governemnt’s decision to introduce a tax on electronic transactions in the country.
The Finance Minister announced the introduction of the Electronic Levy tax while presenting the 2022 Budget estimates in Parliament on Wednesday.
“Electronic transactions covering mobile money payments, bank transfers, merchant payments and inward remittances will be charged at an applicable rate of 1.75%, which shall be borne by the sender except inward remittances, which will be borne by the recipient,” he announced.
According to him, it has become clear that there is an enormous potential to increase revenue from taxes by bringing into the tax bracket transactions being undertaken in the informal sector.
He indicated that COVID-19 contributed to the acceleration of the digitalization drive of Africa and data from the Bank of Ghana has shown a growing trend in online trade thus increasing the value of digital transactions from February 2020 and February 2021 alone to 120%.
Reacting to this after the presentation of the budget, the Minority Leader said he does not support the introduction of the tax.
“You bring 1.75 momo electronic banking tax to further burden Ghanaians. You introduce this levy to raise 15 billion dollars. The market has listened to you. Ghanaians have listened to you”, he said.
