President of the Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA), Dr Joseph Obeng, has bemoaned the high-tax environment businesses are currently operating in.
In his submission to discussions on tax payment and evasion during the Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank Breakfast meeting held at Labadi Beach Hotel on Tuesday, September 19, Dr Joseph Obeng noted that businesses are currently struggling as they are unable to reflect the exorbitant taxes they pay to the government on the cost of their commodities.
He explained that consumers form an integral part of the business cycle and, hence, cannot be made to bear the total cost derived from high taxes.
For him, it would be unwise to take such a decision as consumers are also being hit by the economic crisis characterized by high inflation, high interest rates, among others.
He said: “The taxes that we pay here are just too much compared to the sub-region. So taxes should be simplified and structured in a manner that will ensure compliance. That is why were are not getting the tax to GDP ratio to 20 percent, like our neighbours are doing. We are having difficulty as a business community to navigate through this turbulence of economic situation that we are having here.”
“We have to contend with high cost of doing business in this country. The duties that we pay, the high interest rates, the inflation. It makes businesses very difficult to do. While doing that, government is still compiling alot of taxes on us, even to the point of harassing us in tax payment. When we are trying to do all these things and navigate through, then the consuming public is also on us saying that we should reduce prices.”
According to Dr Joseph Obeng, businesses would have to shut down if they listened to the plea of the consumer and reduced the prices of goods. He added that businesses would not be able to generate profits, the primary reason for their existence.
“How do we break even in our businesses? That is the difficulty that we have to contend with. Because the purchasing power of the consuming public is so minimal because of the effect of inflation.
“We do not do the business in isolation, we do it with the consuming public. So we cannot also overburden them. We cannot overprice our goods so that the consumers cannot patronize them,” he stated.
In April this year, Parliament passed the following acts: Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act 1093), Ghana Revenue Authority (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act 1096), Growth and Sustainability Levy Act, 2023 (Act 1095), Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2023 (Act 1094) and Revenue Administration Act, 2022 (Act 1086).