The Ghana Revenue Authority has commenced processes to enable it to impose taxes on businesses that sell products and services on the internet including Facebook.
However, with the nature of the cyberspace, some analysts have cast doubt about the GRA’s ability to monitor and tax online businesses.
But the GRA says it is currently drafting modalities to enable it to tax online businesses. Edward Gyamerah, a Deputy Commissioner at the Large Tax Payer Office at the GRA said: “Currently, we have a project team that is looking at how to tax the digital economy. The project team is working on developing modalities. We hope that they will come out with their draft for us to share with stakeholders,” Mr. Gyamerah stated.
Millions of commercial transactions take place on the internet every day. Hundreds of businesses operating on the internet have virtually no boundary or monitored to ascertain the volume or value of those transactions.
With the growth of the Cyberspace, a lot of businesses operating in Ghana, are veering away from the conventional way of selling in shops to posting their products and services on the internet; a move that makes it difficult for the GRA in its quest to widen the tax net.
Tax analyst, Abdallah Ali-Nakyea believes the Authority needs to build capacity to achieve this aim.
“It’s not peculiar to Ghana. It’s a challenge across the world. And so what they will need is more support in terms of recruiting IT experts who can assist them in tracking and tracing some of the operators on the digital platforms,” he told Citi News at the sidelines of a public lecture organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountant Ghana (ICAG).
