The Honorable Cassiel Ato Forson, the new Finance Minister, has made it abundantly clear that the Government in its first budget in 2025 will scrap the betting tax.
There have been commentaries in the public domain as to the propriety of scrapping tax in the betting industry.
The betting tax that the Honorable Minister has been referring to is the withholding tax on bet winnings which is just one of the tax types in the betting industry. The withholding tax on bet winnings (winnings tax) is one of two tax types that is applicable exclusively to the betting industry.
Although the winnings tax was in the original version of the Income Tax Act, 2015 (Act 896), it was never really implemented until it was abolished in 2017 by the Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2017 (Act 956). Its re-introduction in 2023 came with a lot of public uproar, especially among punters, since the tax is charged specifically on the winnings of punters.
