Parliament’s Committee on Finance is seized with the much-anticipated revised Tax Exemption Bill which was laid on November 16, 2021, a day before the presentation of the 2022 Budget to Parliament by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.
The Deputy Ranking Member on the Parliament’s Select Committee on Finance and Member of Parliament for Ho West, Benjamin Kpodo, confirmed to parliamentnews360.com in an interview that the Bill is safely secured in the bosom of the Committee led by Chairman Kwaku Kwarteng.
Ghana’s revenue mobilization efforts have been thwarted by the indiscriminate granting of exemptions on taxes, levies, fees and charges to individuals, corporate bodies and business organizations by past and present governments to the detriment of the local tax payer who is rather over burdened with more taxes for development.
The Tax Exemptions Bill (2021) therefore seeks to streamline and rationalize the current exemptions regime on taxes, levies, fees, and charges to improve domestic revenue mobilization by consolidating the already existing statutory provisions on tax and other exemptions and to provide for the administration of exemptions.
The Bill failed to receive the needed attention in the previous Parliament before the tenure of the 7th Parliament expired in January 2021, where it was first laid on the Floor of the House in 2019. As the Standing Orders of Parliament dictates, every unfinished business within the four-year tenure of a particular Parliament is not automatically carried to the next Parliament.
In order to ensure the passage of a fitting tax exemptions regime for the country to help maximize tax revenue, a group of civil society organizations came together in August 2021, under the initiative of the Legislative Advocacy Programme and with funding from OXFAM, to push for a renewed interest in the Bill for its reintroduction in Parliament.
Members of the Legislative Advocacy Programme include: The Tax Justice Coalition, Ghana (TJC); the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC); and the Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica).
Following the work of the Advocacy Group with support from its media partners, the new Exemptions Bill (2021) has been laid in the current 8th Parliament of the Republic and gone through its first reading stage, while awaiting the second reading, the consideration and the third reading stages before its final passage.
The current 8th Parliament is expected to be on Christmas break by the middle of December, which will mark the end of its first session. The first meeting of the second session is expected to begin by January where the Bill will hopefully receive the needed attention from Parliament.
The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has already expressed hope that, given the importance of the Bill, Parliament will consider and pass it in its next meeting.
He made this known during a press briefing the status of progress so far made on negotiations between the government, the Minority in Parliament, and other stakeholders on the 2022 Budget statement and economic policy.
Source: Clement Akoloh||parliamentnews360.com
