Ghana Joint Business Forum kick against three new taxes
The Ghana Joint Business Consultative Forum, a business grouping made up of major business associations in the country is appealing to the President to veto and withdraw the recently passed three tax bills by Parliament.
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They also called for further and better engagement by the government on these bills for a better appreciation on why they are opposed to these taxes.
Registering their disapproval of the three new taxes at a presser in Accra yesterday, a leading member of the forum and president of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) Dr Joseph Obeng remarked that businesses are already saddled with many taxes and stand to lose greatly if these three taxes are implemented.
"We agree that the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War have adversely impacted world economies.
However, we believe the government does not appear to have rightly identified the points of impacts of these two events on businesses.
And without proper diagnosis, the measures the government takes to remedy the situation would be akin to running from one's shadow or in circles," Dr Obeng noted.
Innovative and Pragmatic measure
The forum tasked the government to adopt and initiate measures to ensure compliance to tax payments by businesses and rope in other businesses that are not captured by the tax net.
They asserted that there are many leakages in the tax system citing examples of such leakages by government warehousing and free zones policies which they say must be checked.
"The tax exemption policy should be totally abolished.
This will go a long way to save significant revenue for national development," Dr Obeng who spoke on behalf of ten business associations noted.
Tema Port traffic and AfCTA
The forum revealed that traffic at the Tema Harbour has drastically reduced due to the high cost of doing business adding that any further taxes will worsen the situation.
"We have become very uncompetitive in cross-border trade in the sub regional block and becoming irrelevant in the scheme of affairs of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA).
Engine of Growth
The forum says the private sector is the engine of growth and urged the government to avoid taxing businesses unnecessarily in order to prevent them from becoming ineffective.
They cautioned government to tackle the continuous depreciation of the cedi during the last quarter of last year which they said is hampering businesses in the country.
"The efforts of the IMF to support our national economy will amount to nothing if it ends up destroying local businesses," it added.
Membership of the forum
Ten associations currently make up the forum; they are the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), Importers and Exporters Association, Food and Beverages Association and the Ghana Federation of Labours.
The rest are the Ghana Institute of Frieght Forwarders (GIFF), Customs Brokers Association of Ghana (CUBAG), Association of Customs House Agency (ACHAG), Ashanti Business Owners Association and the Chamber of Automobile Dealers Association
