Taxable mobile money transaction should be above ¢200 per day – Ken Ashigbey

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Kenneth Ashigbey, has asked government to increase the exemption threshold for the electronic transaction levy to ¢200 per day.

He said that will enable many micro and small companies that use mobile money for their transactions to continue using the service.

“From the way they want to implement it [the e-levy], it is going to be between your mobile money if you’re transferring money in the same network to another person, if you had done a debit card payment at a point of sale, if you transfer money from your mobile money to another bank account or from a bank account to another person’s mobile money.”

“Our suggestion is that even this particular levy, may be increased to GH¢200 per day, but it should be on a wallet,” he said on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday.

In announcing the levy in the 2022 budget, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta indicated that the GH₵100 limit for the e-levy is meant to protect the poor and vulnerable in society.

Deputy Finance Minister, Dr John Kumah also explained that, “we noticed that about 30 per cent of people who use Momo in Ghana do not do more than GH₵100 a day and that covers the poor category of Momo users.

“This policy exempted any Momo transaction that is up to GH₵100 and below GH₵100,” he spoke on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, November 18.

Mr Ashigbey bemoaned the labelling of the levy as ‘MoMo’ tax, saying it is discriminatory and unfair because it is actually meant for all electronic transactions and transfers.

He said efforts being made to push QR code payment in the country may not yield the desired results due to the introduction of the electronic levy.

“So all of these conversations are things that we really need to look at and we should ensure that we can generate the revenue that government needs without killing the digitisation agenda of government [and] without impacting on financial inclusion.

“More importantly, it should be equitable. This should be an electronic transaction tax, not a mobile money tax,” he added.

Meanwhile, Policy Risk Analyst, Dr Theo Acheampong, has also proposed that the GH₵100 limit “should also be increased. I think [it] could possibly go up to about GH₵175 a day and that, cumulatively, is around GH₵5,000 a month.”

Source: Ghana News