|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: Social media user Richard Gyamfi says the government has introduced a Growth and Sustainability levy, which places a 5% tax on all companies.
Verdict: This is false. The Growth and Sustainability levy was introduced by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government in the 2023 budget. The current government only made amendments to its application.
Full Text
Social media user and former NPP-UK Youth Organiser Richard Gyamfi says the government has introduced a Growth and Sustainability levy, a 5% tax on all companies.
“The NDC govt has again introduced a new levy in Parliament called the Growth & Sustainability Levy. It’s a new tax of 5% on all companies operating in Ghana. My goodness!!!” He published on X.
The post has garnered over 500K views and over 2.1K likes.
Several other pro-NPP accounts have made the same claim on Facebook.
Collage showing some online users making the claim
DUBAWA Ghana decided to investigate the claim as it could influence political commentary.
Verification
The Growth and Sustainability Levy was first introduced in the 2023 budget statement, presented to parliament by the former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.
“Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of burden-sharing, the National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy (NFSL) will be converted into a Growth and Sustainability Levy (GSL) to cover all entities,” he said (page 56, paragraph 220).
The levy was applicable as a percentage of Profit Before Tax (PBT) or Gross Production of businesses. Per the Growth and Sustainability Levy Act 2023, the rate of application for financial institutions, insurance companies, breweries, oil marketing companies, bulk oil distributors, among others (category A) was 5% of profit before tax.
The rate for mining companies and upstream oil and gas companies (Category B) was 1% of gross production, whereas other entities not falling within Category A or Category B had 2.5% profit before tax.
The levy came into effect on May 1, 2023, and was set to expire at the end of December 2025. However, Parliament recently approved extending the levy’s application to 2028.
The amendment also saw the application rate for gold mining companies increase to 3% from 1%.
Conclusion
The claim that the NDC government has introduced a Growth and Sustainability Levy, which places a 5% tax on all businesses, is false.
