Former President John Dramani Mahama has been accused of bare-faced ignorance, hypocrisy or ignorance over his recent comments lamenting the high number of taxes at Ghana’s ports.
According to a tax expert, Mr. Mahama presided over the same taxes when he was President, and it is hypocritical of him to be finding fault now.
“If you have any friend who was an importer when Mahama was President, you can ask him to show you one of his customs entries and you will see most of all those taxes on it,” the source stated.
Analyzing the comments of the former president, the source recalled that the mention of IRS.
“It appears to me he is just ignorant of what he was talking about, or it was done deliberately to excite his audience,” the source stated.
The expert explained, with regard to the IRS, that every importer is supposed to produce a tax clearance certificate (TCC) at the time of import. He stated in the absence of the TCC, the importer pays 1% of the CIF value of the goods imported.
“The idea is to prove that the importer is tax compliant. If you are a regular importer, you could use the same tax clearance certificate for a period of 3 months. However for some strange reason, this arrangement was cancelled during the NDC era and what is happening is that for every consignment you have to produce a fresh TCC (you can imagine the stress you will have to go through to get the TCC if you are a regular importer),” the source stated.
He stated that a consequence, a lot of importers don’t go for the TCC again, so this payment of IRS at the port has become more of a norm than exception.
“The key here is that if you are a business person and you pay the IRS you can conveniently deduct it from any GRA assessment at any time within the year.
“For instance, if IRS has assessed an income tax of 1,500ghs for the year 2024 and you have paid IRS of say 700 ghs at the port you have the right to deduct the 700 from the 1,500 and pay 800ghs. This is on condition that you can prove payment of that amount by not just the customs declaration form but by producing the bank receipt which has the amounts stated on it,” he stated.
NETWORK CHARGES
He stated that the former president also made mention of network charges and a quick background will suffice. He said that some years ago, we used to have some functions of inspection performed by government agencies.
“Now, this function has been outsourced, and the companies that perform these inspection activities have their charges on the customs entry form. By law these companies are supposed to charge VAT, NHIL, GETFUND Levy, and COVID Levy as you will pay if we go to a hotel, restaurant or buy from any other shop or make an advert in a newspaper. And because they are all itemized on the customs entry form, they are differentiated from the Import VAT, etc,” he said.
In the same manner, shipping line charges attract all those taxes and levies. But because they issue their own invoices, you don’t see them on the Customs Entry Form
ECOWAS LEVY/AFRICA UNION LEVY
He explained that through various trade treaties these levies are put on goods imported from outside ECOWAS and Africa respectively to the extent that if you are importing from any ECOWAS country, you don’t pay the ECOWAS Levy and AU Levy.
MOTI DECLARATION FORM
Sometime ago we used to buy what was called IDF which was filled manually. Now it is filled electronically and the Ministry of Trade and Industry charges Ghs9 for every import irrespective of the value of the said import.
SHIPPERS COUNCIL
Shippers Council has a fee for every import, and that is what is on the Customs Declaration. It is not a tax and neither does it go to the government
GHS DISINFECTION FEE.
GHS instituted a disinfection exercise for every container that comes into the country and the fee is what is seen over there. It goes to the Health Service. It is supposed to keep you and I safe from trans-continental viruses and infections.
