E-levy: Finance Ministry re-clarifies transactions to be affected

The Finance Ministry has re-clarified transactions that will be affected by the Electronic Transaction Levy which is expected to be tabled before Parliament this week.

It insists that only mobile money transactions above 100 will be taxed.
However, transfers between bank accounts owned by the same person will not attract any E-Levy.

Again, transfer from one’s mobile money account (MTN) to another mobile money account (Airtel/Tigo of his/her) will not attract the tax.

Also, transfers for the payment of taxes, fees and charges to Ministries, Departments and Agencies or Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies via the Ghana.gov platform or other designated system will be exempted.

The Finance Ministry further pointed out that a transfer for payments made for a commercial establishments through a payment service (mobile money, bank application, financial technology firm etc.) to a person registered with for the purposes of income tax or value-added tax is exempted. This will apply to both online and physical sales.

There is also 0% E-Levy for salary and allowances of teachers with an average monthly incomes of 1,500.

Workers with average monthly incomes of 3,000 whose salary has mobile money linkage would also be exempted.

At the same time, farmers with average monthly incomes with 500 will also not be affected by the E-Levy. Their payment for farm inputs and medical bills would also not attract E-Levy.

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, last week revised the rate of the E-Levy from 1.75% to 1.50%.

It is expected to be tabled before Parliament this week despite the stiff opposition from the Minority.