Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament has intoduced how Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister might increase revenue without using harsh tax policies like the e-levy.
The Speaker discussed different ways that the government could have used for domestic income creation without necessarily adopting levies like the e-levy, revealing that he had met Mr. Ofori-Atta when the contentious e-levy was launched last year.
The Speaker stated, “The whole nation, I represent their views, so I listen to all the angles and I also read and study,” during a meeting with the management of Media General in Accra on Thursday, June 29.
The speaker said that this is because a significant portion of the population is not subject to taxes, and because these individuals lack documents, it is impossible to determine their income.
“I suggested to him the lottery tax. The Lottery Tax is very simple, you use tax receipt numbers to play the lotto and every week, one tax receipt number will win and you can give a pickup to the person. So, everybody now comes in because the person wants to win a pickup and so they start issuing receipts.
“And so, they formalize the informal businesses. Countries have done it, Malaysia and the rest and they jumped, over 500 percent increase in revenue. I discussed this with the Minister. Look at insurance, there are countries that have moved on now and said any person flying into their country, you have to take medical insurance and that is factored into your ticket.”
Alban Bagbin
According to Alban Bagbin, whenever someone lands in the nation, they are immediately taken to the hospital and treated due to insurance. He claimed that this kind of effort to raise money has been made in Nigeria and other nations.
“The other one is like fumigation, you are in the plane and they do fumigation when you come out on your luggage, they put some $7 on fumigation, that is another way of earning revenue. Look at gaming, the Gaming Commission, there is a lot of money in the gaming sector but you are not taxing them, many countries are taxing them and they are getting a lot of revenue.
“So, I had the opportunity to sit with the Finance Minister to discuss other ways, and that is one of the reasons why we have established, now in Parliament, the Ways and Means Committee. They will assist the executive to look at it because we pass the tax laws, it is not the executive.”
Alban Bagbin
Tax The Narcotics Area
The Speaker of Parliament also brought up the topic of drugs like marijuana, which are utilized in medications. He used the scenario of a person having surgery and being injected with marijuana to make the area around the injection painless so that incisions could be made.
He added that when Parliament established the Narcotics Control Commission Act, a minor tax of less than 1% was agreed upon, but without further review, the Supreme Court reversed its decision and ruled that the Clause was not subject to debate and was therefore unconstitutional.
“And So I called these judges and I told them, I don’t understand them, who debates what is agreed upon? When you are writing your judgments and you go and the lead judge writes his opinion and comes to read to you all and you all agree, do you debate it? No. So we debate things that we disagree with, things that we agree you don’t debate it.
“The constitutional provisions don’t say that everything must be debated even when there is a disagreement, it does make sense. But they struck out that section from the Narcotics Control Commission Act and so we lost.”
Alban Bagbin
Alban Bagbin also mentioned that Ghana had many businessmen who wanted to invest in it because it was legal and controllable and that Canada used it a lot to produce revenue. He gave the assurance that it would only be utilized for medications and that a lot of money could be generated from it.
“So, there are many ways to raise revenue, not e-levy. We tried to get the Finance Minister this thing but he would not understand it, we are looking more outside than inside [for revenue].”
Alban Bagbin
READ ALSO: The People Of Assin North Are Not Dumb– Prof. Gyampo
