The Minister-designate for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, has said revenues could be mobilised without necessarily increasing taxes.
According to him, if approved by Parliament as the next finance minister, he would focus on tax compliance to rake in more revenue.
“You don’t necessarily have to increase taxes before you rake in revenue. We have the handles. What we need to do is improve compliance,” he asserted.
The finance minister nominee made this statement on Monday, January 13, 2025, during his vetting at the Appointments Committee of Parliament.
Responding to a question by the ranking member on the committee, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, on the alternative measure to scrapping the existing taxes described as nuisance.
In his response, the Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, promised to work with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the tax policy unit of the ministry of finance, to improve compliance to increase revenue.
“I will work with the GRA, the Tax Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance, to ensure that we increase compliance and to raise the revenue as much as we can. In the medium term, it is my vision, when approved, to increase the tax revenue from 13.8% of GDP to about 16 to 18%. That we’ll be able to compare ourselves to our peers,” he assured.
He argued that the taxes identified to be scrapped are not raking in the needed revenue, citing that scrapping the GH¢50 million revenue from the betting tax would not hurt the revenue mobilisation.
“I believe the potential is out there. It doesn’t necessarily mean we should increase taxes. Yes, we have obviously announced that we are going to scrap certain taxes. We’ll stick to just that. But it doesn’t also mean that we don’t care about the revenue. We care about the revenue. And we will have to do more on revenue. For example, the betting tax is bringing in less than GH¢50 million Ghana a year. It’s a nuisance tax. Scrapping GH¢50 million will not mean anything in a way that will affect the economy if you are to adjust, particularly from the expenditure side.”
