Tax increment: Govt needs a bitter pill to heal – Dr. Stephen Amoah

The Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Dr Stephen Amoah, has said, the government must increase taxes though, it has negative repercussions on people and businesses.

Drawing the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) into conversation while justifying the way to restore the country’s fiscal policy is to generate revenue internally, the Deputy Minister said:

“The option to help this country to move on is to increase taxes. Tax increment is a bitter pill that we need today to save this country. If not, they [NDC] should tell us a third option,” GhanaWeb quoted him.

“How are we going to generate revenue internally to solve our problems? Either we borrow or we take taxes. Now we’ve borrowed so much that our debt to GDP is high. So we cannot continue borrowing at that alarming rate.”, he added ahead of the 2024 Budget to be presented by the Finance Minister.

Background

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta is presenting the 2024 Budget Statement and Economic Policy document to parliament today, November 15, 2023.

This is per Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) which requires the minister to provide the mid-year fiscal policy review of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government.

In a statement issued on November 14 and sighted by GhanaWeb Business, it noted that the crucial economic policy has been developed to support the implementation of the IMF-backed Post-COVID-19 Programme of Economic Growth (PC-PEG).

The Ministry added that the budget will also highlight, among other things, the performance of the economy, efforts to boost the productive capacity of the economy through the new Growth Strategy, fiscal measures, and debt management strategies to deepen stability and promote growth

Source: Kapital Online Team//2023