President John Dramani Mahama
THE presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), ex-President John Dramani Mahama has said the next NDC government under his watch would exempt small businesses and their owners from paying corporate and personal income taxes.
This, he indicated, was to ensure that they ploughed back their profits into the businesses for expansion, asserting that they estimated that this would involve about GH¢1.4 billion a year.
According to him, that will be the best stimulus package any government can inject back to businesses to expand small scale enterprises.
For medium-sized Ghanaian businesses, the NDC leader said they would reduce the corporate income tax rate from 25 per cent to 15 per cent in order to give managers of such enterprises the breathing room to be able to reinvest and grow their businesses.
“But then we will exempt newly established medium-sized companies that employ up to 20 people from paying corporate income tax for the first year when they are establishing the business,” he disclosed.
For him, this is important because the most critical time in establishing a business is the first year when you are investing and that it is not the right time for the government to come and ask you to bring money.
“And so, we will give you that relief. And for businesses that employ 20 and more, they will get corporate tax exemption for two years so that they can establish the business properly and expand the business to employ more people,” he said.
No Tax for Commercial Vehicles
Ex-President Mahama said the NDC would again exempt commercial vehicles and other commercial equipment imported into the country from import duty for the purpose of promoting commercial, industrial and agriculture sectors.
“We will review the Customs (Amendment) Act 2020 (Act 1014) to scrap the law banning the importation of savaged vehicles and the proposed imposition of the 35 per cent import duty rate,” he indicated.
“This is to save the local automotive industry so that our people in Suame Magazine, Kokompe and Abosey Okai to continue to work and earn a decent living,” he stated and added that the NDC would, however, encourage vehicle assembling plants investing in Ghana not to cancel out the local industry, but be a complement.
Again, the NDC government would reverse the decoupling of VAT of 12.5 per cent, NHIS, 2.5 per cent and GET Fund, 2.5 per cent, which the NDC flagbearer alleged, had brought untold hardship unto Ghanaian businesses and households.
He added that they would introduce a rural incentive package to create meaningful employment for the youth, especially in rural areas and investors in rural communities.
“Under this programme, they will be exempted from dividend and capital gain taxes and if they employ up to 50 persons they will be granted tax exemptions and further incentives on the importation of capital equipment,” he added.
Mr. Mahama also said they would provide special tax incentives for indigenous value-chain industries such as mineral processing, petroleum-based industries, agro-based and paper industries in order to unlock sustainable job opportunities.
By Ernest Kofi Adu