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Mr. Francis-Timore, a tax consultant commended Vice President Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia on his policies presented to Ghanaians but questioned his authenticity.
During a conversation on PM Ghana with Pepsival, Mr Timore questioned why Dr Bawumia, who has held the position of Vice President for almost seven [7] years could not leverage on such policies but is now proposing all these policies to secure a Presidential position.
Mr. Timore expressed his opinion on tax policies and disagreed with Dr. Bawumia’s initiative on tax amnesty, stating that it was a wrong move. He believes that in tax policy, allowing an offender who abuses the amnesty policy to go unpunished simply allows them to re-offend again. He further explained that this is not a good time to implement such a policy.
He expressed concern over the repeated use of an amnesty tax in 2017 and 2021 leading to its abuse.
February 20, 2017, concerns were raised at a session on the relevance of the Tax Amnesty Law on businesses by the UK Ghana Chamber of Commerce. Passed in December 2017, the tax amnesty bill seeks to improve voluntary compliance among taxpayers. Under the law, defaulting businesses will be allowed to pay a revised tax obligation that they had been in default for some time. The law lasted for nine months; between January to September 2018.
Mr. Timore believes that penalizing defaulters or offenders does not effectively benefit the government as the amount of money collected would not be significant enough to make a difference.
“It is too early for amnesty tax, focus on widening the tax net he said”.
Meanwhile, he applauded the vice President on his move to widen the tax net, a move he says is in the right direction to improve the country.
“Less than 3 Million people pay direct taxes in Ghana, this has imposed a lot of indirect taxes by the Government, therefore any attempt to widen the tax space is fantastic”
Adoanews.com
