The government, as part of strategies to widen the country’s tax net, has announced an Electronic Transaction Levy.
It will be a 1.75 percent charge on all electronic transactions.
This fee, according to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is to enhance financial inclusion and protect the vulnerable.
Transactions covering mobile money payments, bank transfers, merchant payments, and inward remittances will have the levy imposed on them and will be borne by the sender.
It is on the back of this that, the government believes is becoming clear there exists “enormous potential to increase tax revenues by bringing into the tax bracket, transactions that could be best defined as being undertaken in the “informal economy”.