NPP will take less taxes but we’ll do more – Bawumia

Running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, says if voted into power, his party will not burden Ghanaians with unreasonable taxes.

Unlike the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress government, he indicated that the NPP will build a business-friendly, people-centred economy.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana said the NDC has mismanaged the economy so much and because the government is so fixated on raising more revenue to fuel its profligate spending, it has inevitably hurt businesses in particular and the economy in general.

An NPP government, he said, will make room for businesses to growth and expand by abolishing taxes on import duties on all raw materials and VAT imposed on financial services, he said.

“Let the businesses produce, let them make profit and when they do and employ people, we will get income taxes and we will get corporate taxes so you don’t go ahead to kill the business.

“Let them bring the raw materials, let them produce then you will tax at the end of the day. This is all to ginger up production and the economy. You have an economy where you have cutlasses being taxed, condoms being taxed.

“This is what happens when you become desperate and when you have mismanaged the economy into this hole, then anything sounds great to you because you don’t have any option,” he continued.

The unbearable nature of taxes imposed on businesses in his view, has accounted for the ongoing strike by the Ghana Union of Traders’ Association (GUTA) whose members have closed their shops for days now in protest against new taxes.

This should not be allowed in a country that has oil resources with a government which has had the most unbelievable amount of resources over seven years, he stressed.

“All of these taxes are hurting the economy and, therefore, you are not going to get the growth, and when you don’t get the growth, you will not get the revenue and when you don’t get the revenue you will go back to increasing taxes to get the revenue.

“Then you are in a cyclical downward spiral and so they have it wrong and we will change that particular policy. We will use the tax incentives to grow this economy,” he continued.

More taxes is not the solution to the problems, it is reckless, Dr Bawumia stressed adding, “We will take less taxes but we will do more.”

Source: Myjoyonline