Govt justifies introduction of three new Tax Bills

She insists that the new tax bills are urgently needed to shore up the government’s revenue mobilisation agenda to revive the ailing economy.

Approval of these outstanding revenue mobilisation bills will facilitate the Board Approval for the $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) Programme staff-level agreement.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, Abena Osei Asare said the new bills when passed by Parliament will also help the government provide aid to vulnerable people severely impacted by the effects of Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukriane war.

Inasmuch as we are raising revenue, we also need to look at the vulnerable who have been hit hard and these are the revenues that we believe that if we raise we can use some to support them.”

The deputy Finance Minister added that the passage of the three Bills is also necessary for effective Budget implementation as well as boosting efforts at increasing Tax-to-GDP from less than 13% to the sub-Saharan average of 18%

“As a country, we need to mobilise our own domestic revenue to pursue our own national development agenda and so these are some of the things we can do to raise revenue

As we speak if you compare the revenue we raise to our GDP we are still way below the West African target of below 16 to 18 percent we are still doing 13 percent and so there is more that we feel we can do,” the MP for Atiwa East told host Bernard Avle.