The Executive Director of Revenue Generation Africa and a member of the Tax Justice Coalition, Geoffrey Ocansey has described as untimely, the government’s introduction of some six taxes and levies in the 2021 budget.
According to him, though there is the need to raise enough revenue for the 2021 fiscal year, the introduction of these taxes will further worsen the economic situation of the populace because of the impact of COVID-19 which many are still yet to recover from.
Amongst other things, the Government has introduced the Sanitation and Pollution Levy as part of efforts to fund investment in the areas of sanitation and pollution.
The government as also proposed a financial sector clean-up tax.
But Mr. Ocansey in an interview with Citi News called on the Government to come up with more innovative ways to raise revenue rather than impose levies and taxes on the already burdened Ghanaians.
He maintains that businesses and individuals are overstretched at the moment.
“The introduction of these new taxes and levies around these times is poorly timed. I think businesses and individuals are overstretched with financial difficulties in this period and it was going to be proper for government to cough incentives opportunities like rent taxes from landlords and property rates also cutting down on government expenditures and checking its debts accumulation.”
With the same concern, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu has asked Ghanaians to brace themselves up for hike in prices of goods and services.
Mr. Iddrisu also said the introduction of the new taxes by government is clear indication that prices of commodities will go up.
According to him, the 2021 budget presents no hope for the Ghanaian worker.
“There is no hope. Ghanaians must brace themselves up for increased hardship and increased suffering because it means that there will be petrol hikes with ESLA that they [NPP] described a few years ago as a nuisance tax. But they are back to it as a credible source of revenue which is a lack of principle.”