My Government Will Provide Tax Amnesty- Bawumia

The 2024 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has promised a tax amnesty for citizens and businesses in his leadership over the country.

The amnesty will accompany a new tax system he intends to introduce to increase the tax revenue of the country by broadening the tax base.

“The current tax regime has been with us since independence and it has failed us. Many people do not pay taxes (including property taxes). Too much discretion results in corruption. We want a regime that is easy to understand, easy to comply with and easy to enforce and that is not subject to so much discretion,” the Vice President said on February 6, during an address about his objective for the country in his quest to become President.

Instituting incentives, he believes, will go a long way to encourage persons outside the tax net to file to retrieve the estimated $24 billion in uncollected taxes.

New Tax System
Dr Bawumia has promised citizen and business-friendly digitalized flat tax regimes with appropriate exemption thresholds set to protect the poor.

“To start the new tax system on a clean slate, my government will provide a tax amnesty (i.e. a complete exemption from the payment of taxes for a specified period and the waiving of interest and penalties) up to a certain year to individuals and businesses for failures to file taxes in previous years so that everyone will start afresh.”

With the digitalised tax measure, Dr Bawumia said manual or paper filing of taxes will be eradicated in 2025.

This is aimed at ensuring transparency and accountability.