Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has proposed how Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta can raise revenue without draconian revenue measures such as the Electronic (E-levy).
According to him, Ghana can raise revenue through the introduction of narcotics, gaming, and lottery taxes.
“The lottery tax is very simple, you use tax receipt numbers to play the lotto and every week, one tax receipt number will win and you can give a pickup to the person. So everybody now comes in because the person wants to win a pickup and so they start issuing receipts.
“And so they formalize the informal businesses. Countries have done it, Malaysia and the rest and they jumped, over 500 percent increase in revenue. I discussed this with the Minister.”
“Look at gaming, the Gaming Commission, there is a lot of money in the gaming sector but you are not taxing them, many countries are taxing them and they are getting a lot of revenue.”
Mr Bagbin was of the view that insurance taxes for tourists and other foreigners can generate revenue for the country.
“Look at insurance, there are countries that have moved on now and said any person flying into their country you have to take medical insurance and that is factored into your ticket. So in case you land and there is a problem they just rush you to the hospital and treat you because you are insured. Nigeria and the rest, they have taken that, that is another way of raising revenue. The other one is like fumigation, you are in the plane and they do fumigation when you come out on your luggage, they put some $7 on fumigation, that is another way of earning revenue.”
To him, the use of Indian hemp popularly known as ‘wee’ in medicines can be capitalized with the introduction of taxes under the Narcotics Control Commission Act.
“One of the areas is narcotics, wee because they use it in pharmaceuticals. Now you go for a surgical operation and most of the things they inject you with are from wee, the place becomes numb so when they cut you don’t feel anything at all. We put a small percentage 0. something when we were passing the Narcotics Control Commission Act.”
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