The Ghana Union of Traders’ Association (GUTA) is worried about the excessive import duties paid by its members.
President of GUTA, Dr Joseph Obeng, said the situation makes trading in Ghana extremely difficult.
He reiterated the need for authorities to make taxes friendlier to achieve maximum compliance from business operators.
“It is increasingly becoming difficult to do business here looking at the duties on goods alone,” Dr Joseph Obeng said in an interview on 3FM Tuesday, November 29.
Meanwhile, GUTA has described the 2.5 per cent increment in Value Added Tax (VAT) in the 2023 budget as unfortunate.
According to them, this is a clear departure from the promise the government made to them during a stakeholders’ meeting to address taxes.
At the said meetings, the government made it clear there would not be an increment in taxes in the 2023 budget, GUTA said.
The Director of Welfare at GUTA, Benjamin Yeboah, expressed the association’s disappointment with the increment.
“Already, we have some teething problems with the implementation of the current state of the VAT.
“As an association, we have some challenges with compliance with the VAT. And we have raised it with Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), and we were thinking there was going to be some reduction to enable more people to comply.
“We understood that the government will look at the implementation as well as the compliance rather than the increment of the tax,” he lamented.
The government has increased Value Added Tax (VAT) by 2.5 per cent in addition to the Standard Rate of 12.5 per cent as it makes efforts to generate enough revenue to address the country’s needs.
Presenting the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy in Parliament on Thursday, November 24, 2022, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta stated that the government was committed to changing the negative narrative surrounding the economy to rebuild a better future.
Mr Ofori-Atta said, “to aggressively mobilize domestic revenue, we will, among others, increase the VAT rate by 2.5 per cent to directly support our roads and digitalization agenda”.
“This increase is expected to yield GHc2.70 billion, which will be used to augment funding for our road infrastructure development. This will be complemented by a major compliance programme to ensure that we derive the maximum yields from existing revenue handles,” he added.