The Patriotic Forum For Accountable Governance (PaFFAG) has said the abolition and reduction of several nuisance taxes that were introduced by the erstwhile Mahama-led NDC government, have helped to reduce the burden of the public, but said the NPP government could still go down further to bring more relief to the people.
The group’s Executive Director, Kwame Baffoe aka Abronye, said at a news conference in Accra on Friday that the NDC government, which is now claiming insensitivity on the part of the NPP administration, were the ones that overburdened Ghanaians with nuisance taxes which the NPP is helping to reduce.
“It would be recalled that, John Dramani Mahama’s government in 2014 and 2015 introduced some killer taxes on petroleum products. Some of these killer taxes that were introduced included Special Petroleum Tax 17.5% and Excise Duty Levy. However, Nana Akufo-Addo as a listening President in 2017 abolished the Excise Duty Levy on petroleum products. He also reduced the killer 17.5% Special Petroleum Tax to 13% which has curtailed the burden on Ghanaians.”
He said “PaFFAG believes that without the abolishment of the Excise Duty Levy and the reduction of Special Petroleum Tax from 17.5 to 13%, a gallon of fuel would have been pegged at GH¢ 55.00 by this time.”
In order to further curtail the burden on Ghanaians, the PaFFAG leader appealed passionately to the NPP administration “to reduce the John Mahama killer Special Petroleum Tax introduced in 2014 to 11%.”
He said the taxes (15) abolished by the Akufo-Addo administration included 1 per cent Special Import Levy; 17.5 per cent VAT/NHIL on financial services; 17.5 per cent VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines, that are not produced locally; initiate steps to remove import duties on raw materials and machinery for production within the context of the ECOWAS Common External Tariff (CET) Protocol.
He also mentioned the abolition of 17.5 per cent VAT/NHIL on domestic airline tickets; 5 per cent VAT/NHIL on Real Estate sales; Excise Duty on petroleum; Special Petroleum Tax rate from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent; Duty on the importation of spare parts; Levies imposed on kayayei by local authorities; Taxation, the gains from realisation of securities listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange or publicly held securities approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
He said the government also reviewed the National Electrification Scheme Levy from 5 per cent to 3 per cent; Public Lighting Levy from 5 per cent to 2 per cent; replaced the 17.5 VAT/NHIL rate with a flat rate of 3 per cent for traders; and implemented tax credits and other incentives for businesses.
“These abolishment and review of taxes has drastically reduced the burden of taxes on businesses and individuals and this is unprecedented in the history of economic management in Ghana,” he said but added that the government could still do more to ease the pressure on businesses for the benefit of the ordinary people in particular.