Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has announced an upward adjustment in Value Added Tax (VAT) by 2.5%.
The increase in the rate forms part of the government’s seven-point agenda to revitalize the country’s economy, the Finance Minister told parliament on Thursday while presenting the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to parliament.
The move is intended “to directly support our roads and digitalization agenda”, the minister reiterated.
The government is also set to undertake major structural reforms in the public sector, according to the Finance Minister.
“The government is determined to change the negative narrative and rebuild for a better future,” he said.
Minority to resist 2.5% increment in VAT
Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has vowed to resist any attempt by the government to revise the rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) upwards in the 2023 budget.
Speaking to the media in parliament, MP for Asuogyaman, Thomas Ampem Nyarko argued such a move will further exacerbate the current hardship in the country.
The NDC MPs rather want the government to cut down expenditures especially from the presidency vault.
“In fact the information we are picking up doesn’t look good for our dear country. The budget that is due to be read tomorrow promises to be a budget full of taxes. What we are hearing is that this government intends to increase VAT by 2.8 percent. They intend to increase income taxes and they intend to remove a lot of exemptions to Mobile Money (MoMo). So even merchants are going to be subjected to taxes.
“We have known this government to be insensitive but we never knew that their level of insensitivity would be this high. Because in this time of serious hardship in this country with inflation so high none of us expected that they would be increasing taxes to this level,” the Member of the Finance Committee stated.
