The Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has said that the “poor” have been exempted from the Electronic Transaction Levy due to the threshold of less than GHC100.
Also, he debunked claims that the Levy will kill the Mobile Money [Momo] industry.
According to him, although the same comments were made during the introduction of the Communications Service Tax, the telecom industry has thrived ever since.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday (29 March), the Ofoase Ayirebi Member of Parliament said, “There is a claim that has been made that it will kill the MoMo industry so don’t tax MoMo.
“This same claim was made when the Communications Service Tax was being introduced, it has never killed the industry. In fact, the industry has grown.”
He added: “Mr Speaker, finally, the poor have been taken out of it with the threshold implemented so that those who transfer less than GHC 100 a day will not pay this levy.”
E-Levy reduced to 1.5%
The government has decided to reduce the E-Levy charges from 1.75% to 1.5%, Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister for Finance has said.
He said the decision for the reduction was due to the various stakeholder engagements undertaken by the government.
Ahead of the passage of the levy into law, Ofori-Atta said: “…the government has also decided to reduce the rate of the levy from 1.75% of the transfer to 1.5% of the transfer.”
He said the object of this bill [E-Levy] is to broaden the tax of the country and impose a levy on electronic transfers to enhance the government’s drive for revenue mobilisation.
Nicholas Brown
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