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Minister of Communications and Digitization, Ursula Owusu has defended government’s directive to tax all Mobile Money transactions above GHS 100.
Earlier GhArticles.com reported that, the government of Ghana has announced a new Electronic Transaction Levy as as part of strategies to widen the country’s tax net.
It will be a 1.75 percent charge on all electronic transactions.
This fee, according to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is to enhance financial inclusion and protect the vulnerable.
Transactions covering mobile money payments, banks transfers, merchant payments, and inward remittances will have the levy imposed on them and will be borne by the sender.
However, the levy will be waived for transactions that amount to GHS 100 or less in a day or approximately GHS 3,000 per month.
The government says portions of revenue collected from the levy will be used to support entrepreneurship, youth employment, cybersecurity, digital, and road infrastructure among others.
This new directive from the government has generated a lot of discussions across the social media space in Ghana.
Meanwhile, Dr Bawumia ( Vice President Of Ghana) in 2020 said that he doesn’t believe in MoMo taxes because most MoMo users are poor people.
In the studios of GHOne today, Thursday, November 18, 2021, Ursula Owusu explained the rationale and change of mind of the government.
Hon. Ursula Owusu noted that the ‘poor’ bracket used by Bawumia referred to people doing transactions below 100 cedis.
She mentioned that any person sending money to another cannot be considered to be poor if the amount exceeds 100 cedis because that amount is big money.
She added that this means that there should be a tax placed on it.
She opined that government changed its mind regarding taxation on mobile money transactions because over time the system has grown and many are comfortable using it and as such it was only right that taxes are placed on such transactions.
When pushed to the wall to say how much government expects from mobile money transactions with the new tax, she said that about 600 million will be made every month to help grow the economy and change the country.
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Source: GhArticles.com
