The government has expressed its commitment to implement policies that will make Ghana become prosperous but called on citizens to support the sharing of the tax burden to reduce the public debt and budget deficit.
Making the call on Thursday, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, urged Ghanaians to be confident in building a prosperous society and developing the solid human capital required to drive the economies of Africa.
However, Mr Ofori-Atta, who was speaking during the E-levy Town Hall meeting in Koforidua, said the efforts would require some sacrifices on the parts of the citizens and government.
Highlighting the major government spending, he said, the government had spent GHS40 billion on education, GHS14 billion on health care, GHS14.9 billion on enhancing internal security and GHS18 billion on flagship projects.
He explained that these expenditures had helped 1.26 million citizens in receiving free SHS, 3.45 million citizens from school feeding programmes, 100,000 NABCO persons and 244 households.
He said for the government to have been able to cater for these human expenditures, indicated that in the coming years there would be challenges in mobilizing resources to carry out other projects.
“Traditionally, when the challenges arise, we look at fuel increments and we all know the negative effects it bears on all of us,” he said.
“Currently 2.4 million people are registered as taxpayers out of 18 million potential taxpayers,” he added. “This means 2.4 million people are paying taxes to support 30.8 million population.”
Mr Ofori-Atta said without the payment of tax, “Ghana cannot achieve national development if we do not pay taxes.”
“If we think deep in ourselves, nobody like tax but rarely if we look at our debt situation, what we need to do is to raise our own money for national development,” he said.
“Our tax revenue as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is below our peer countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, SSA, thus 13% as at 2021, which increased from 12.2% in 2020,” he added.
“Even though it increased, it is still very low as we compare to 16.5% and above which we cannot sustain so we need to cure that.”
Looking at the distribution of taxes among the regions, greater Accra contributes 88 per cent, he said, “if we combine Eastern, Ashanti and Western contributes 3% of national tax, which cannot be right when we look at the population in these regions.”
“Hence, we need to find a way to share our tax burden.”
For Ghana to reduce its public debts and budget deficit, Mr Ofori-Atta said it required an increase in the tax revenue but to attain this “It would require the effort of every Ghanaian to take their part and pay their required taxes.”
Source: GNA
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Yɛntua ooooo yɛntua. In Germany, UK, etc, their taxes are used for the benefit of all, not for selected few. It is very good that you can not force me to use MOMO
Ghanaians Dey show where the real power lies otwea ,after winning your boys Dey feel big forgetting it is our taxes that pay them,now you talking about inclusion,you guys chopping chakakaka funyaaa you think we are ***barred word*** ?we won’t suffer for you to chop,if you weren’t spending rough rough we would have supported it’s quite unfortunate that NDC was criticized for V8 n your ministers and appointees proved they love more than ndc
Just as we need to share the benefits, You use my tax to procure V8 for MP's and still decide to bear 60% of the tax without recourse to the taxpayer. Is v8 by force, why can't MP's use Nissan pickups, how many of the taxpayers drive V8. We have about 650,000 workers on government payroll, how many article 71 office holders constitute this number, what percentage of total payroll cost goes to these officials? We want to know. When people see that their leaders are not sacrificing they will resist additional taxes, nobody can say Ghanaians don't want to pay tax, they want to see what their taxes are used for. A poor teacher, nurse or civil servant picks a loan from his/her bankers to buy a motorbike to ride to work and for 3 years he won't get full salary because the banks are deducting the loan with killer interest, you take income tax from these poor workers and use it to buy V8's for people who represents nobody but themselves. Why won't they resist additional taxes. Former president Kufuor made friends with the big presidents ie George ***barred word***, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Queen Elizabeth, Shinzo Abe, Jacques Chirac etc and got a lot of support from them. Akuffo Addo should also look for big friends. We thought this NPP will be like the Kufuor one thus the overwhelming support in 2016, unfortunately it's the opposite of kufour's NPP.
1. In Ontario, Canada. There's a provincial tax called (Hamonous) and it's 13% that is added to everything you buy from the shop. Suppose you see a pair of shoes that is priced at $100, you'd pay additional 13% on it so you'd end up paying for $113 at the cashier. Ghanaians complain too much but expect so much... Even if you go to the bank and exchange money from Canadian dollars to the US dollars, you'd be taxed 7% SO 1.75% IS A DROP IN THE OCEAN AND TELL GHANAIANS NOT TO THING OF COMING TO NORTH AMERICA BECAUSE TAXES IS WHAT MAKE THIS COUNTRY WORKED USA AND CANADA DO NOT BORROW TO PROVIDE FOR THEIR CITIZENS BUT RATHER THE CITIZENS PAY FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT NO FREE LUNCH ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD LAZY GHANAIANS THE FREE DAYS ARE OVER LOOSERS.