The government has been urged to further reduce the E-Levy to between 0.1% and 0.5% by the Ghanaian Mobile Money (MoMo) Agents Association.
The association claims that the decrease will enable the government to reach its revenue goal because many people have avoided using Mobile Money to make cash withdrawals because of the high fees.
Evans Otumfour, the association’s general secretary, said the following while speaking to Citi News:
“The government needs to do some research to determine why people aren’t buying from MoMo. It is clear that one of the main obstacles to the government collecting its revenue is the rate.Government must therefore lower the rate in order to avoid affecting many people. Since there are more than 17 million MoMo users, the government will still reach its revenue goal if the rate is set at 0.1 or 0.5 percent. If not, people will search for alternatives, such as using money.
The government will eliminate the GH100 daily threshold on the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) and lower the headline rate from 1.5 percent to 1 percent, according to an announcement made by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on November 24.
He stated, “We will revise the E-Levy Act and, more precisely, cut the headline charge from 1.5 percent to 1 percent of the transaction amount and abolish the daily threshold,” when presenting the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to parliament.
According to the Finance Minister, the E-levy review is one of several reforms and interventions that are a part of revenue initiatives meant to speed up economic change and restore macroeconomic stability.
He added that the action is in response to suggestions for a review of the levy that the government has received.
Government officials have repeatedly stated their intention to use technology to strengthen tax compliance, improve tax administration, and identify and register taxable individuals in order to increase revenue collection efforts.