Ghana turns to domestic taxes to finance development over money market woes

The hard part: finding ways to convince millions of untaxed people in Ghana to contribute to the national kitty.

Only 8.2% of working Ghanaians pay income tax according to Ofori-Atta, who is developing ‘burden sharing’ strategies to pull the rest in.

“Only 2,364,348 are bearing the burden of the entire population as taxpayers as of August 2021. This is a trend that needs to be addressed to build a more equitable society,” the finance minister said while presenting the 2022 budget to parliament in December.

The low tax-to-GDP ratio of the country makes it hard to finance the country’s developmental agenda.