The nation is still debating the new Electronic Tax that the government has decided to impose on Ghanaians effective from next year. In his reading of the 2022 budget yesterday, Ken Ofori Atta, the Finance Minister mentioned that all electronic transactions will be charged a rate of 1.75% for every amount sent that exceeds 100 cedis.
This has raised questions about if indeed government intends to decrease the burden on Ghanaians.
The new tax has raised questions about an earlier statement of Vice President Bawumia when he had insisted that there is no need for taxes on people sending MOMO because most of the users are poor people. In the studios of GHOne today, Thursday, November 18, 2021, Ursula Owusu explained the rationale and change of mind of the government.
Ursula Owusu noted that the ‘poor’ bracket used by Bawumia referred to people doing transactions below 100 cedis. She mentioned that any person sending money to another cannot be considered to be poor if the amount exceeds 100 cedis because that amount is big money. She added that this means that there should be a tax placed on it.
She opined that government changed its mind regarding taxation on mobile money transactions because over time the system has grown and many are comfortable using it and as such it was only right that taxes are placed on such transactions.
When pushed to the wall to say how much government expects from mobile money transactions with the new tax, she said that about 600 million will be made every month to help grow the economy and change the country.
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Kwarteng Seth