The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says plans are far ahead in taxing electronic commerce and online businesses from April 1, 2022.
The move, according to the GRA, is part of efforts to achieve the GHC80.3billion tax revenue target for the year 2022.
The GRA Commissioner-General, Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah speaking at the opening ceremony of the GRA 2022 Management Retreat in Ho explained that the system has been designed to ensure that any e-commerce, betting and gaming platform that operate on the Ghanaian internet space are tax compliant.
He added “there will be vigorous efforts to tax players in the e-commerce market. This sector has been a challenge over the years for the Authority but we have put in place measures that will enable us to make inroads into the sector this year.”
The commissioner reiterated that the authority is engaging with the gaming commission, Ghana, and operators in the gaming and betting industry to ensure the right taxes are paid by players.
The e-commerce industry has been growing at an admirable rate. According to data from Statista, revenue in the e-commerce market is projected to reach 759 million dollars in 2022. The number of users is also expected to grow to 11.5 million users in 2025 with the average revenue per user hitting 85.50 dollars.
As such, the government is seeking to tap into this potential.
Rev Owusu Amoah explains that on top of the E-commerce tax, the passing of the E-Levy bill will play a significant role in the country’s revenue mobilization that the government is pushing for.
He revealed that a lot of education on E-levy will help bring clarity of the levy to Ghanaians in order for them to give in their full support.
He added that his outfit will be piloting an E-Invoicing system with selected taxpayers to stop the manual ways of invoicing and block out the leakages in the VAT system
“We must play our part by asking for our VAT invoices when we buy goods”.
