Member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) legal team, Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, has made a statement in support of the Minority MPs' intention to oppose the E-levy as announced by the government.
According to him, the E-levy taxation "is a clear case of extortion."
He indicated that the proposal to subject all electronic transactions to a 1.75 per cent tax by the Nana Akufo-Addo administration reveals the insensitive nature of government to the plight of Ghanaians and Telcos.
"If you are to send money via mobile money to a relative in the village, Akufo-Addo and Bawumia have decided to take 1.75% from it, and you know the painful aspect..., even the owners of the platform, the entire value chain, the vendors and everything are sharing one Ghana cedi.
"This government alone wants to take 1.75% on that taxation, ...by going through this process alone will give them a little over six billion Ghana cedis. That is how much money Akufo-Addo is taking from you and I, six billion from our mobile money, this is terrible," he said.
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Mr. Edudzi Tamakloe attributed the introduction of the E-levy to the abysmal performance of government over state resources.
"The government of Ghana have three options, go to the IMF, take Eurobond or do tax. Going to the IMF will expose them so they have decided to shun that, the Eurobond too, the investor confidence in the economy is very down so they are not comfortable with Eurobond. The last one they did too in October failed terribly so they are not sure so the only way is to go through Mobile money", he said on TV3 New Day.
On November 17, 2021, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, during his presentation of the 2022 budget, disclosed that from January 2022, the government will levy all electronic transactions as part of efforts to widen the tax net to cover the informal sector.
According to Mr Ofori Atta, an E-levy of 1.75% will be imposed on all electronic transactions covering mobile money payments, bank transfers, merchant payments, and inward remittances which shall be borne by the sender.