No new taxes will be introduced in 2020 – Ofori Atta

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta has announced that government will not introduce new taxes in 2020 fiscal year.

“We have not imposed any new taxes, ” the sector minister made this known during the 2020 budget statement and economic policy on Wednesday.

According to the Minister, government would restructure the tax system and develop a comprehensive revenue policy and strategy to address the challenges of revenue mobilization.

He added that the government would also lend the necessary support to the Ghana Revenue Authority to boost revenue collection in order to meet its revenue targets.

“We will take radical policy and institutional reforms towards raising our tax-to-GDP ratio over the medium term from under 13 percent currently to around 20 percent. The focus will be on efficiency and base-broadening rather than imposing new taxes on our people and businesses. This way, we can raise our domestic contribution to our ambitious transformation agenda, in line with the Ghana Beyond Aid vision,” he stated.

The Minister, however noted, although the Communications Service Tax was recently increased from 6% to 9%, the overall direction regarding the burden of taxation on Ghanaians has been overwhelmingly downward in the last three years.

“We promised to move the economic policy away from one focused on taxation to one focused on production and we have done just that over the last three year,” he said.

He added that in line with government’s policy, parliamentary approval would be sought to ensure that the 12 per cent minimum wage increase for 2020 is tax-exempt.