Businesses Yield to Enforcement of Excise Tax Stamp

By Justice Dzido On Mar 2, 2018

Business operators have expressed their readiness to comply with the three day ultimatum set by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to fix the excise tax stamp on their products by Monday, March 5, 2018.

This comes contrary to earlier resistance to the implementation of the policy.

The comments also follows GRA’s monitoring of the compliance levels with the excise tax stamp policy, on Thursday, 1^st March, 2018

The three day ultimatum comes on the back of the level of compliance observed at some major retail outlets across Accra.

At the various malls that the monitoring team visited, it was observed that almost all imported products including cigarettes and drinks, bore the tax stamps with majority of locally manufactured ones not bearing the stamps.

The Operations Manager of the Osu mall, Paul Adamson who spoke to Citi Business News said he believes the delay in local manufacturers acquiring the stamp is as a result of change resistence.

“ You know it takes a while for people to adjust to new things and that is why I believe most of the locally manufactured goods do not have the tax stamp yet; however in a few days to come they will all have it”

He was however hopeful that manufacturers should be able to fix the tax stamps on their products to escape any sanctions when the ultimatum expires on Monday, March 5, 2018.

“However with this exercise that the GRA is embarking on, all shops will make sure their goods have the tax stamp on them because no shop will like to have their goods seized and destroyed”, he stressed.

Meanwhile the Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Emmanuel Kofi Nti insists that the GRA will not back down on its enforcement of the Excise Tax Stamp Policy despite the stiff opposition it is facing from the businesses to be affected.

“The Ghana Revenue Authority is resolved that excise should contribute its fair share of revenue , in 2010, excise revenue to domestic revenue was 3.4 % and it has come down to 1.9 % as at 2017 , we want the hemorage to stop”.