Budget is pro-poor though it contains several tax measures-

Accra, Dec 3, GNA - Dr Edward Larbi-Siaw, Tax Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, on Thursday said the several taxes introduced in the 2011 budget cannot negate its pro-poor status. He said the environmental tax for instance, which excludes sachet water is a tax on environmental pollution to encourage the production of bio-degradable materials.

Dr Siaw was presenting a paper on tax justice at a day's workshop on the 2010 budget as part of Integrated Social Justice Development Centre's (ISODEC) tax justice campaign for national development and economic prosperity in Accra.

The workshop seeks to collate views of participants on the impact of the current tax initiatives in the 2011 budget in order to develop a position paper for ISODEC's tax justice campaign and education. According to him, the car hiring business were making a lot of money adding that vehicle income tax rates have not changed since 2005 and if " we follow the canons of taxation -fairness, cost effectiveness then it is reasonable that we revise the rates."

Dr Siaw also noted that professional bodies were required to pay tax adding however that professional footballers who are playing in foreign countries were not obliged to pay taxes in Ghana because they pay taxes to the government of the country in which they reside. He said if a professional footballer earns income in Ghana, he would have to pay tax adding however that if there is double taxation agreement with a foreign country, a person who earns the income in foreign country would be required to pay the tax in country where he or she resides and his home country would be given the credit.

Dr Siaw said any Church doing commercial business will pay taxes saying that Presbyterian Church for example pays taxes. He noted that information was still being gathered on rental houses in the country to repackage the property tax regime adding, property tax in some countries form a greater proportion of public income. He explained that small and medium scale enterprises will be taxed under a new scheme that will allow them to go through the laborious input/output analysis.

Mr Yaw Asante Boadi, official from the Institute of Taxation, said the budget failed to address issues such as how to improve tax revenue derived from the mining sector, improve revenue to be derived from oil, why foreign investors always seek tax exemptions. 2 Dec 10