Rt. Reverend Professor Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, has bemoaned the low number of persons who pay taxes in the country.
According to Prof. Mante, about 10% of Ghana’s population pays taxes, which does not augur well for the country’s development. As a result, the Reverend advised Ghanaians to adopt the mindset of paying more taxes if they truly want to see Ghana develop beyond aid.
“In Norway, you go there and the taxes they are paying [is evident]. Over 40 per cent of taxes and the tax base is spread. In Ghana, less than 10 per cent of the population is paying taxes which is a serious matter. So, we all need to have a mindset of tax paying. We should pay more taxes than we are doing.”
Professor Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante,
Touching on the controversial e-levy, the man of God, while not stating whether he favors or opposes the levy, emphasized the importance of proper taxation in order to boost revenue mobilization for the country’s advancement, growth, and development.
“Even as we in Ghana now are thinking about budget, whether we should pay e-levy and so on and so forth, what I want to say is whether it is e-levy or not, every Ghanaian must tune his or her mind to the fact that paying taxes is what will move us forward. Any country that we have seen in this world that has progressed is paying lots of taxes.
Professor Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante,
He then advised the government to reevaluate the 1.75 percent e-levy in order to move forward and give people time to adjust.
“I want to suggest to government with all seriousness that, while I am talking about paying taxes so that we can move ahead, please do it slowly for us, bit by bit so that we just don’t start from 1.75 ‘kilometer’. It becomes a killer for people. People must get used to it. As we move along, if you increase it little by little, it will help all of us.”
Professor Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante,
E-Levy not the way forward
Former Finance Deputy Minister, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, however opined that if the government takes significant steps to combat corruption and curb wasteful spending, it will not require the GHC6.9 billion that would be raised through the Electronic Transfer Levy (e-levy).
He contended that imposing new taxes on Ghanaians is unjustifiable because the government continues to waste resources on non-productive expenditures.
“It is very difficult to justify to Ghanaians why they should pay more taxes when they see and hear corruption every day in government but it is brushed under the carpet for lack of evidence. Wasteful expenditures in projects that have yielded very little results but keep reappearing in the budget year after year, in the last 5 years, for more money to be thrown at it.
Kweku Ricketts-Hagan
“So, what Ghanaians really have a problem with, is seeing their tax revenues being wasted in ways that in the end has nothing to show for it. Whether we are borrowing, which we have done astronomically or levying our people to suffocate them and deepening their hardship, the results have been the same- abysmal! Nothing to show for it.”
Kweku Ricketts-Hagan
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