The Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Dr. John kwakye has expressed worry and lamented on the high increments of taxes by government on Ghanaian’s.
He stated that the government should rather focus on the booming sectors rather than the overburdened consumers.
According to Dr. kwakye, the consumers are being over taxed leaving the booming sectors to generate more financial resources mentioning the mining sector, Telecommunications and banks as examples.
He also pressed on the leakages at the ports as people importing and exporting goods at under priced values in order to pay less taxes.
“Consumers, even businesses in general, the taxes they are paying are quite high. If I’m talking about businesses you can differentiate among the businesses. And so if you want to raise more tax, you don’t just increase existing tax rates for those who are already paying tax. Go and look for it from the booming sectors of the economy. Because in economy the sectors that are booming, they are the ones generating more financial resources, for instance the telecoms, banking and mining sectors. And then we are also talking about Leakages at the port where people import and export goods under priced the value so that they will pay less tax. If you were to block all these loop holes, you’ll raise a lot of revenue that it will not be necessarily to increase taxes for already overburdened consumers”. he said.
