We will abolish ‘burdensome’ E-levy when we come to power – Mahama
Former President Mahama of the opposition National Democratic Congress has promised that Ghanaians will stop paying the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) if his party wins power in 2025.
“A new National Democratic Congress government, God willing, and with the votes of the sovereign people of Ghana in 2025, will repeal the E-levy Act,” the one-term former President said when he spoke at the NDC’s “Ghana at a crossroads” event held in Accra on Monday, May 2, 2022.
Though he explained that, the NDC is not against the principle of taxation, he said they are, however, opposed to burdensome levies like the E-levy.
“We in the NDC do not oppose taxation as a principle. We will not be pretentious and couch fanciful slogans to condemn the principle of taxation like the NPP did in the past. We are, however, implacably opposed to distortionary and burdensome taxes like the E-levy that only force Ghanaians to endure more suffering,” he added.
The implementation of the controversial levy was started on May 1, 2022, by the government despite widespread condemnation of the tax policy.
After several protests led by the opposition party, its Members in Parliament and some civil society groups the levy was reduced from 1.75% to 1.5%.
Government had estimated
to rake in about GH¢7 billion from the collection of the 1.5% levy on mobile money and other electronic transactions, but the figure was revised downwards to about GH¢4 billion recently.
The opposition NDC on the other hand had tagged the levy as double taxation and counterproductive but the government had still argued that, it was a burden-sharing initiative adopted to shore up the country’s internal revenue instead of depending on foreign aid.
