Finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta has revealed that the government will reduce the controversial and burdensome Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy) from the current 1.5% to 1% and also increase the threshold from GHC 100 per transaction.
He disclosed this on the floor of parliament while delivering the 2023 budget.
According to him, the move is one of the various initiatives the government intends to roll out to turn the economy around and lessen the severe economic hardship that Ghanaians are currently going through.
At least GH₵6.9 billion was expected to be raised from the tax that many analysts have described as regressive, but the figure had to be revised to about GH₵4.9 billion following the delay in the passage of the e-levy bill. Having missed the GH₵1.46 billion target for the first half of the year, the government had to revise the tax measure downwards, again, to GH₵611 million.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has disclosed that three hundred and twenty-eight million cedis (GH¢328m) has been realized so far from the e-levy.
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According to Dr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, Commissioner-General of the GRA this amount is the total since the tax took effect in May.
“We continue to see increases in the revenue collected and we are confident that this will continue. There is increasingly between 10-15% improvement in the collection of the E-levy on a month-on-month basis”, the Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah said.
E-levy was introduced and passed into law last year amidst almost nationwide objections. It imposes a 1.5% tax on all electronic money transfers including mobile money, and bank transfers from one account to another which belong to different holders.