The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has assured the business community of good times as it prepares to assume power on January 7, 2017, following the party’s victory in the December 7 election.
The party, during its 2016 campaign for power, promised to significantly reduce certain taxes and completely scrap others. These include a five per cent cut in corporate tax from the current 25 per cent to 20 per cent, the removal of import duties on raw materials and machinery for production.
It also promised to abolish the Special Import Levy, 17.5 per cent VAT on imported medicines not produced locally, abolish 17.5 per cent VAT on financial services, scrap five per cent VAT on real estate sales, among others.
These measures, according to the party, is intended to relieve businesses the burden of high taxes and cost of doing business.
Speaking to Class News, Mustapha Hamid, spokesperson for incoming president Nana Akufo-Addo, said the NPP intends to keep its promise to the business community.
“We are a party of business, everybody knows that. We are a liberal conservative party and one of the cardinal beliefs of a liberal conservative party is the free market economy, where private enterprise is the driver of growth and development. And, so, for a party like that, you know business people will be comfortable and already we’ve put out things in our manifesto about reducing corporate taxes, about taking away taxes from raw materials for manufacturing, etc., which will then ease the burden of business and help them to expand and, therefore, create more job opportunities for our teeming young people,” he stated, adding: “So, I can assure the business community, once you have NPP, you are in business.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
