BUDGET: Airport Tax Act to be amended

Government has proposed an amendment of the Airport Tax Act to enable airlines to collect the tax through the ticketing system from passengers to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance has said.

He said henceforth the Ministry of Finance would pay the 40.0 per cent of airport tax to the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) upon the certification of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said this in Accra on Thursday when he presented the 2003 Budget Statement to Parliament.

He said it was to ensure regular flow of revenue to Government and avoid the delays associated with the remittance of the monies collected to the IRS after it had been paid to the GCAA by the various airlines.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said government was not happy with how some financial institutions were treating bad debt.

"Some financial institutions are capitalising on the concession granted in Section 7 of L.I. 1675 to write off specific standard bad debts. To streamline the assessment of tax liability, it is proposed to repeal Section 7 of L.I. 1675.

"All organisations should, therefore, comply with provisions of Section 18 of Act 592 (2000), which limits bad debt provisions to debt claims, which cannot be satisfied having taken all reasonable and necessary steps to pursue payment."

He said in view of the poor performance of the transport unions in the collection of income taxes from commercial operations, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had agreed with the Transport Council, to introduce a sticker system that would be based on standard assessment.

These stickers would be procured quarterly and would be administered by the IRS.

The government, he said, would also increase the Road Maintenance Levy from 230 to 400 per litre of petroleum product.