Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has, in relation to the implementation of the e-levy, said: “I don’t know of any programme which has technology involved that would not have teething problems but certainly, the cataclysmic pronouncements by people on the other side is not happening”.
The 1.5 per cent levy on some electronic transactions does not affect mobile money transfers under GHS100.
However, some transactions within that category got taxed on 1 May 2022 when the implementation started.
Concerning the anomalies associated with the roll-out of the levy, Mr Ofori-Atta told journalists at a press conference on Thursday, 12 May 2022: “I think we pretty much have it under control, as much as we can”.
“We started on May 1, we were blessed with that being a period of holidays for three, four days, so, we saw the issues and began to tackle them,” he said.
He said: “We are a country moving really forward”, adding: “We know our salaries are not that high so truly, most of those that people advocate as regressive taxes are not affected at all”.
“And if you have GH¢200, I am sure you can do it in two days and, therefore, there will be a zero-impact”, he proposed.
“We are truly excited about this new tax handle to look at issues of curing auction failures, increasing our revenue mobilisation, getting technology and gradually moving into an economy in which, really, people just don’t use cash because it’s much easier to continue with technology,” he added.