The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industries is calling on government to use the 2023 pre-budget to review the Electronic Transfer Levy rate to make it cheaper for Ghanaians to contribute to it.
” We also raise concerns about the E-levy. We think the 1.5 E-levy is too high, the reason people are not patronising the E-levy. So we have suggested that the rate of E-levy be reduced to less than 1.5,” He said.
The Chamber notes that to ensure the E-Levy achieves it objective, government should revise the rate of 1.5% downwards and stagger it within the bands of 0.5% to 1.0%.
CEO of the Chamber Mark Badu Aboagye notes that this will not stifle the growth and sustainability of businesses in the country, as there are already too many indirect taxes handled that add to the high production cost of doing business in the country.
“2022 has been a difficult year for businesses. We’ve seen inflation, the cedi rapidly depreciating, policy rates and interest rates are going up, and fuel prices are increasing day in, and day out. This has impacted very negatively on the activities of businesses.
Businesses are collapsing every day and it’s not good for an economy like Ghana. So in the 2023 budget, we want to see a clear direction on how the government is going to bring some stability to the macroeconomic environment.
Again, there are a lot of taxes already in the system, both direct and indirect taxes and in the 2023 budget, we don’t expect that the government will introduce new taxes,” Mr. Aboagye stated.
-Ghana Chamber Of Commerce
Story by: Kelvin Danso
