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As part of the policy implementation plan, the government allotted GH¢241,933,000 to be spent on services.
But the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has said the government's approach to widening tax using the electronic transaction approach is most incompetent.
In a Twitter post, he said "E-levy is the most incompetent, lazy, brute snd crude way of seeking to widen the tax net."
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Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced a new levy to be charged by the government in 2022 on all electronic transactions to widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector.
"It is becoming clear there exists an enormous potential to increase tax revenues by bringing into the tax bracket, transactions that could be best defined as being undertaken in the ‘informal economy,” Ofori-Atta said on Wednesday, November 17, 2021, when he presented the 2022 budget statement in Parliament.
"After considerable deliberations, the government has decided to place a levy on all electronic transactions to widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector. This shall be known as the 'Electronic Transaction Levy or E-Levy'".
The proposed E- levy if approved by Parliament will come into effect on February 1, 2022.
The tax has since been met with mixed reactions, with Ghanaians kicking against it and stressing that it will only place an extra burden on their finances.
The minority in parliament has also announced that it will not support approval for the proposal.