Government will reduce e-levy from 1.5% to 1% – Ofori-Atta

Government will reduce e-levy from 1.5% to 1% – Ofori-Atta

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has disclosed that the government will be reducing the Electronic Transactions Levy (e-levy) from its current 1.5 percent to 1 percent.

As part of the 2023 budget presentation, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta said the 1 percent levy will affect transactions commencing from GH¢100.

According to the Finance Minister, this initiative by the government will turn the economy around and lessen the current economic hardship Ghanaians are facing.

“As a first step, however, the headline rate will be reduced to one percent of the transaction value alongside the removal of the daily threshold,” Ofori-Atta stated.

The Electronic Transactions Levy was expected to at least raise GH₵6.9 billion in revenue but, the figure had to be revised to about GH₵4.9 billion due to the delay in the passage of the e-levy bill.

Therefore, the tax has been revised to GH₵611 million again after missing the GH₵1.46 billion target for the first six months of the year.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) revealed that about three hundred and twenty-eight million cedis (GH¢328m) revenue has so far been generated from the e-levy.

The Commissioner-General of the GRA, Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, said the amount generated is the total since the levy took effect in May.

“We continue to see increases in the revenue collected and we are confident that this will continue. There is increasingly between 10-15% improvement in the collection of the E-levy on a month-on-month basis”, the Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah said.

The Electronic Transaction Levy was introduced and passed into law in 2021 despite the agitations of Ghanaians. The levy imposes a 1.5% tax on all electronic money transfers including mobile money and bank transfers from one account to another which belong to different holders.

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