This mind-blowing development came to light after the tax invoice covering the laptop was shared on social media.
Ghanaian pays GHC7,400 in taxes after importing 1 Macbook pro
Ghanaians are struggling to come to terms with why and how on earth the importation of just a single Macbook pro attracted taxes to the tune of over GHC7,400.
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A total list of 17 different levies, ranging from import duty to the Africa Union Import Levy and Covid-19 Recovery Levy, were the taxes imposed on the single item.
A Twitter user identified as @justicea83 shared the invoice on his page and captioned it: "This is the amount I paid for duty on a Macbook pro."
His post sparked reactions, with many Ghanaians lamenting how the system is designed to impoverish the citizenry.
Some of them speculated that the importer must have imported more than one item, for which reason the amount of taxes paid was so high.
However, @justicea83 returned to clarify that the imported item was just one, lamenting: "We can't even produce laptops but we're charging outrageous amounts when people import them just for usage. It's not fair!"
Sharing his experience, one @ChiefAppiah3 on Twitter wrote: "Imported and S22 ultra and iPhone 12 through DHL,still paid duty of almost 3000ghc."
Meanwhile, some other Twitter users suggested that buying the Macbook pro in Ghana would have been cost effective since the buyer wouldn’t have to pay all the 17 different levies.
But the point is, because the Macbook pro is not produced here in Ghana, large-scale importers would definitely pay the levies and then factor them into the cost of the item.
See some of the reactions below:
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