AGI president calls 2025 budget promising, applauds scrapping of E-Levy

The President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) for Greater Accra, Tsonam Akpeloo, has described the 2025 budget as promising and sustainable, particularly for the private sector.

He highlighted the removal of the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) as a major relief for businesses, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that rely on mobile money for financial transactions.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s Oxfam Tax Dialogue on March 18, Akpeloo emphasized how eliminating certain taxes would ease financial pressures on businesses.

“The budget looks promising. Even though we are not yet out of the hook, we still have concerns, but it comes across as a more stabilized budget for us in the private sector. Especially because some of the taxes that we have always advocated against have been taken out, like the E-Levy, for example,” he stated.

He further explained the burden the levy had placed on SMEs:

“If you follow advocacy, you will realize that most of the businesses that are SMEs really use mobile money for transactions, so the E-Levy thing was a big deal. It was affecting them significantly. But our view is that the tax rate to GDP ratio should be worked on to decrease. As we speak now, it is about 40%, but we should be doing about 20%. What it means is that we have to expand the tax basket.”

To ease the tax burden, Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson announced on March 11 the government’s decision to abolish several taxes, including:

The 1% Electronic Levy (E-Levy)

Betting tax

Emission levy on industries and vehicles

VAT on motor vehicle insurance policies

1.5% withholding tax on unprocessed gold winnings by small-scale miners

To formalize these changes, the Finance Minister has presented the Electronic Transfer Levy (Repeal) Bill 2025, the Emissions Levy (Repeal) Bill 2025, and the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2025 before Parliament. These bills aim to officially eliminate the E-Levy, remove the emissions levy, and scrap the 10% withholding tax on betting winnings, in line with the commitments outlined in the 2025 budget, which was presented on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama.

Source: dailymailgh.com