SOURCE: GRAPHICONLINE
Parliament has approved three major tax bills targeted at bolstering the sustainable generation of domestic revenue for the country.
The bills are the Excise Duty and Excise Tax Stamp (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2022, and the Growth and Sustainability Levy Bill, 2022.
The trio, which were passed under certificates of urgency, are projected to complement the government’s efforts to raise more than GH¢4 billion annually.
The Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, which will impose a 20 per cent tax on cigarettes and e-smoking devices, as well as sweetened beverages, spirits and wines, is projected to rake in about GH¢400 million annually, while the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill will generate about GH¢1.2 billion.
The Growth and Sustainability (Amendment) Bill, which will replace the National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy that currently imposes a levy on companies operating in selected sectors, is also projected to raise about GH¢2.2 billion.
The National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy itself replaced the National Reconstruction Levy, 2001 (Act 597) and the National Reconstruction Levy (Amendment) Act, 2005 (Act 687), which imposed a 1.5 per cent non-deductible levy on profits before tax of all companies, except rural and community banks.
The House also approved the Ghana Revenue Authority Bill, 2022.
The three tax bills are vital to enhancing Ghana’s chances of securing a $3-billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Headcounts on votes
The approval of the bills came last Friday after the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, had moved the motions for the House to approve them.
When the Speaker put the motions to voice votes during the consideration stage and the third readings, he declared the “Ayes” to have had it.
However, his rulings on the voice votes were challenged three consecutive times by the First Deputy Minority Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, who called for headcounts and a division.
Division is where MPs will walk out of the chamber and be called in one after another to be counted.
In spite of the high hopes of the Minority to block the approval of the bills, the outcome of the headcounts showed 137 “Aye” and 136 “No” votes in favour of the bills.
Uncertainties explained
On the question of how 137 Majority MPs were counted during each of the headcounts, the Minority Chief Whip, Governs Kwame Agbodza, said often things that happened in the House were “sometimes misinterpreted outside”.
“When we took the last vote, you (Mr Speaker) counted 137 for our colleagues; some members of the public are aware that two of our colleagues were not physically here and it would be appropriate to make a public pronouncement why we still counted 137,” he prayed.
