Mark Okraku Mantey, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, has recommended that the government now focus on a few internet firms following the contentious passage of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy).
He claimed that money made by online companies like YouTube, Bolt Food, and others might be utilized to pay for government projects.
In an interview with GTV in Accra, he stated that in order for Ghana to progress, citizens must give their due share through taxes.
Mr. Mantey supports the E-Levy because he believes that skilled workers in the informal sector, such as Masons and Carpenters, do not pay any direct taxes on their earnings but are willing to complain about insufficient infrastructure, poor road networks, and a variety of other issues that he does not understand.
He claims that the E-Levy will assist SMEs in staying in business for longer periods of time, as well as assist Ghana in taxing YouTubers, vloggers, and bloggers who make money from social media and other online activities.
“So I ask myself, how do we fix these things that make you complain about what you do not contribute. Again, the small business enterprise comes up in a few years, and they collapse because they are overloaded with some taxes so why don’t we expand the scope to help reduce the corporate Ghana of taxes, so we can distribute it such that you don’t overload the few who have agreed to pay for it”.
“My creative people are selling on YouTube, iTunes, Bolt Food, Uber, people are now buying clothes online, are they paying anything to the government? No, I think after the MOMO, we need to go heavily online to see what we can get from there” he added.
