GRA defends decision to levy taxes on bloggers, brand influencers, MCs, and others

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has offered a rationale for its decision to impose taxes on bloggers, brand influencers, MCs, and other individuals involved in similar activities.

Taxation of income derived from the digital domain has become a subject of discussion in various countries, Ghana included.

While conventional sources of income are relatively straightforward to tax, earnings from the digital sphere present unique challenges.

The GRA’s decision to consider taxing bloggers and similar entities has raised numerous concerns.

However, in an interview, Edward Gyambra, the Commissioner responsible for the domestic tax revenue division at the GRA, stressed that expanding the tax base does not equate to introducing a new tax.

Instead, he explained that it is regarded as equitable for businesses generating income to contribute their share to the national revenue.

He clarified that the GRA is merely broadening the tax scope to encompass all businesses, whether they operate online or offline.

“Some people doing business online is something that is on the blog globally and if you remember last year, we also launched our e-commerce taxation and as part of getting online people to pay taxes all these players will be brought to book to ensure that they also pay their bit of taxes to the country.”

“We are expanding the tax net, and it doesn’t mean we are introducing a new tax. If you are generating income from any business, that income is taxable and so if you sit behind your computer and create content and generate income from that, we will tax that income,” he added.