Be ruthless with non-tax compliance firms to address revenue shortfalls – Economist to Finance Minister

An Economist Courage Boti is urging Finance Minister Dr. Ato Forson to ruthlessly wage a war on businesses not meeting their tax obligations to the state.

Mr. Boti believes that this is one of the surest ways to deal with revenue shortfalls and mobilization challenges.

He argued that resolving tax compliance issue will not put pressure on government to introduce new taxes or push for increases.

“We have too many taxes in this country and there is no need to introduce a new one to raise the required revenue to support government’s expenditure”, he said.

“If we are heavy on compliance in this country, we can raise the required revenue to address the low tax to GDP ratio as well as meet the country’s rising expenditure”, he added.

He stressed that “compliance is the way to, looking at how the economy is currently expanding”.

Removal of some taxes in 2025 Budget

Mr. Boti’s proposals follow fears that government could be compelled to increase fees and charges, and introduce new taxes after scrapping e-ley, betting tax and the Covid-19 levy.

Government could lose about 10 billion cedis every year if the e-ley, betting tax and the Covid-19 levy are removed.

Finance Minister Dr. Forson, during his recent vetting in parliament, reiterated government’s commitment to go ahead and remove the taxes.
The Ghana Revenue Authority ended 2024, mobilizing 153 billion cedis in tax revenue, 5.2 percent more than the145 billion cedis projected for 2025.

Reacting to this, the Chief Executive of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mark Badu Aboagye cautioned that the business community will reject any form of new taxes or levies in the 2025 budget.

He called for a shift in the practice where only a few businesses operating in the formal sector are compelled to pay taxes while the majority do not.

“We should understand that businesses want to pay their taxes, but not in its current form. For instances taxing firms before they start working” he said.