Tax consultant, Francis Timore Boi, has cast doubt government’s intention to tax big global tech firms such as Google, YouTube, X, and Facebook may not work.
The Minister for Communication and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu Ekuful during the recent 3i Summit in Accra announced that the draft policy to tax the tech companies have been completed.
She explained that such global companies, even though may not have established offices in Ghana make substantial income from the country through their contents.
However, Mr. Timore Boi argued that it will be impractical for individual countries in Africa to design tax laws to compel global tech giants outside the continent to pay taxes.
He advised the Government of Ghana to join forces and collaborate with other African countries on the continent to formulate a holistic policy that will compel the companies to implement the law.
“If you look at the draft bill, you need to ascertain the global revenue of these global tech companies. You need to ascertain the revenue of Facebook, Youtube, X which are not in your country, but located in the United States. You will even need technical capabilities and a lot of corporation is needed. I don’t foresee this happening”, he said.
Mr. Timore Boi emphasized that there is a justification for African countries to demand taxes from global tech firms, but must be pursued in a way that will give no room for the companies to avoid payment.
He stated that a cursory observation the financials of such companies show that African countries can make substantial revenue from their operations.
“It will have a very significant impact on revenue mobilization. Almost everybody is going digital. If Ghana alone decides to have its law drafted it won’t get anywhere”, he stressed.
Source: Myjoyonline
