Mobile money operators are already assuming their part to reverse the e-levy. It is left with the general public to have their influence.
A realized strategy employed by telecom companies in the past to force the reversal of a tax imposed on recharge credits called the talk time tax is being employed on the e-levy by the Telco’s and other implementing establishments. In the event that this tax isn’t reversed in somewhere around a year, then the citizens really need to pay it.
The new tax on electronic money transfers, prominently called e-levy, has faced firm resistance in Ghana. The tax which has been implemented despite firm open resistance has such a lot of history attached to it. One such history was, interestingly, an exchange of fisticuffs by members of parliament (MPs) from the opposite sides of parliament. The tax, which is in its early stages of implementation, is as yet hoped by the public that it will be reversed.
The mobile money telecom networks, which are the bigger accusing entities together of other monetary organizations who are supposed to collect a one and half per cent (1.5%) tax on any sum being transferred, are taking on a known strategy which was used in the past to help the reversal of the e-levy. When the talk time tax was increased in the past under the current government, the legislators were irate that the Telco’s were conveying the then tax to the general public by uncovering how much talk-time specific sum an individual was paying anytime they reload their mobile credits.
The government officials were irate for clear reasons. They wanted to shut down the general public on the amount they were paying. More so, they wished to put the tax blame on the Telco’s, like the Telco’s were the ones charging any extra fee for their service.
As expected of any African libertarian government, who care more about the number of votes they could lose or acquire and not care more about pursuing the appropriate choice, the Ghanaian government was furious about the level of transparency the Telco’s wanted to show by giving tax-specific data to the general public in real time.
The government’s stated reason for being discontent with the Telco’s was that the Telco’s didn’t communicate other tax-specific data to the public separated from the discussion time tax. The government could be correct about their suspension of sabotage by the Telco’s.
However, the Telco’s could likewise be correct about giving real-time data on the discussion time tax for transparency and defuse some unacceptable impression that they were the ones charging extra fees.
The same simple strategy of transparent tax commitment correspondence by the Telco’s and other monetary organizations is being employed in a subtle attempt to play a known card that could force the government to reverse the e-levy.
Having started conveying the e-levy tax in real time, it is unlikely the decision to disclose the tax commitment on a tax-specific premise will be discontinued from here on out. Before, during the era of the talk time tax increase, every attempt to force charging entities to stop tax-specific correspondence failed. It was rather the Government who reversed the increment of the discussion time tax below the level it was before they assumed governance.
There is no question the government studied the level of transactions happening on the foundation of the Telco’s, before and after the talk time increment, before taking the decision to reverse the e-levy. The information that was studied ought to flag a huge reduction in the sum citizens spent recharging their mobile sims.
The assumed reduction ought to have a correlation between the tax specific correspondence and citizens’ decision on how often they reload their sims. Therefore, since the charging entities of the e-levy are unveiling the tax sum being paid in real time to the general public, with the end goal of transparency as well as for political pressure, it is the turn of the citizens to assume their part with respect to the number of taxable transactions they that execute.
For the citizens to quick track the reversal of the e-levy, people should reduce their taxable sums or taxable transactions below fifty per cent (50). Transactions below half ought to be the information the government’s Economic Management Team would need to see to force them to reverse the e-levy.
How to Avoid paying the E-levy
Some of the possible ways of trying not to pay the e-levy and reduce your taxable sums are; transferring the tax-free threshold of a hundred Ghana cedis (Ghc100.00) a day and any remaining transactions for the day are done with cash removed from the nearest agent.
Likewise, people can keep their second or third mobile money sims with their dependents or beneficiaries with a depiction of their IDs to help withdrawal from such sims after transferring money from the financier’s handheld sims to the sims kept with others, since money transferred between their own records isn’t taxable etc.
The E-levy bill was one of the approved bills by parliament that was assented to by the president of the republic in record time, inside 48 hours.
However the bill passed by the Ghanaian parliament has been litigated in the supreme court of the land for absence of casting a ballot majority to pass the bill, the directive application filled by the offended parties in the case has been rejected by the seven (7) sitting justices, on the premise that any tax collected from the general public can be refunded back to the general population and not vice-versa. The offended parties are minority leader in parliament and MP for Tamale Central Constituency, hon. Haruna Iddrisu, MP for North Tongu, Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and MP for Bawku Central Mahama Ayariga
