The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in collaboration with International Center for Taxation and Development (ICTD) held a workshop in Accra to discuss the taxation of mobile money and its impact on the economy.
Details
Currently, Ghana’s e-Levy policy imposes a tax of 1%. on mobile money transfer between two different account/wallet holders with a limit of GHC 100.
At the end of 2023, GRA achieved a revised target GHC 1.19 billion after the revision of the contribution rate by the Minister of Finance from 1.5% to 1%.
Digging deeper
The collaboration between GRA and ICTD has continued ever since November 11, 2022following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which will enable both entities to undertake research and support GRA’s research capacity to improve tax mobilisation.
Because it matters
The introduction of Mobile Money tax in Ghana in 2022 has been seen as controversial by various entities including civil society groups and the public at large.
Research conducted shows that the E-Levy is extremely regressivewith users at the bottom paying much of their income on top of the levy, while informal work at home is disproportionately burdened by the tax.
The workshop was to discuss the role of academia, the research and design of the E-Levy and its implications for the informal market in Ghana in the short and long term.
By The Numbers
Digital finance services are growing in the last 5 years with ~53 million users having a registered mobile money account.
The total value of mobile money transactions reached an all-time high GHC 1.9 trillion at the end of 2023.
MTN represented 60% share of the E-Levy revenue coming from the telco at the end of 2023.
Zoom out
Africa in general currently has a a total of 15 countries that currently apply taxes to digital financial services, including mobile money transfers and withdrawals.
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