The President of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), says securing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal as a country will be pointless if businesses collapse due to the burden of the new taxes.
Dr Joseph Obeng speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile, said the introduction of the three new taxes will only destroy businesses which goes contrary to the main aim of the IMFs policy.
“The IMF itself does not seek the destruction of businesses. The effort of the IMF to relieve us of the problem will come to nought, it will amount to nothing if, at the end of the day businesses are destroyed, that’s why we disapprove of this task because we could’ve adopted other alternatives”.
“And that’s why we were calling for stakeholder engagement so that we will also build consensus and then will arrive at any necessary alternative that could save the nation and save the generality of business,” he said.
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According to Dr Obeng, these specific taxes were not imposed on us by the IMF and hence government could have a flexible way of bargaining to make things more convenient for Ghanaians.
He added that over the years taxes are always being paid by businesses which is evident in the revenue generated by the Ghana Revenue Authority therefore if that money is still insufficient for government then maybe they should rather put their expenditure in check.
“It’s not that businesses are not paying these taxes, businesses have not performed badly, for the past couple of years, Ghana Revenue Authority has been exceeding its revenue target and so if government is still in want then government has to put its expenditure in check because we’re doing our best,” he stated.
The President of GUTA suggested that government can also expand the tax net to generate more revenue rather than putting all the load on the few per cent that pays the taxes.
“If government still seeks from us then they have to expand the tax net because just a few of us are paying these taxes and it’s breaking the backs of businesses”.
“Ghana Revenue Authority itself has said that about 13 million Ghanaians have the capacity to pay taxes but only about 5 million are captured into the tax net, so do we have to push all these problems at the back of these few people that are paying?” he quizzed.
Parliament has passed the three tax bills which were tabled before it as part of government’s measures to generate more revenue.
The bills namely the Income Tax Amendment Bill, The Excise Duty Amendment Bill and the Growth and Sustainability Amendment Bill were passed on the evening of Friday, March 31, 2023.
Earlier, the government had stated that the revenue bills are needed to help the government complete processes for the about $3 billion IMF deal as well as improve the revenue situation of the country.
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