Proposed Talk-Time Tax to be changed

Accra, Jan. 23, GNA - Government on Wednesday said it was considering an ad valorem tax proposal by the Telecom operators instead of a flat rate for the introduction of the air/talk time tax. Mr. Fred Opare-Ansah, Deputy Minister of Communication who announced this during a familiarization tour at the Ghana Telecom Company said the operators had indicated that a flat rate would be unfriendly to their system and hence make implementation difficult.

An Ad valorem tax such as sales or value added tax is a tax based on the value of a product imposed at a time of a transaction. He said: "We've had consultation with operators in the industry organised by the Ministry of Finance and at present everybody is happy with the current stage of negotiation.

"As you are aware Ghana is moving forward and we need everybody to make a little contribution," Mr Opare-Ansah explained and said a committee had been tasked to look into the various proposals to make the tax non discriminatory.

The Deputy Minister said government was committed to ensuring that, operators' revenues were not affected in any way when the tax came into force before the end of March this year.

He said as far as the 2008 budget was concerned, legislation introducing the tax had already been passed, but what was left now was the drafting of a specific tariff structure after which Parliament would review it for passage.

Mr Opare-Ansah, together with some officials from the Communication Ministry and top executives of the Ghana Telecom toured the premises of the GT headquarters, the Ghana Telecom University College at Tesano and the GT Call Centre at the High Street where monitoring of customers concerns were carried out.