The Ghanaian government is planning on taxing mobile money

Mr Andah was speaking at the Ghana Digital Roadmap event held last week. He said that exploring the government is currently exploring revenue opportunities in the mobile money ecosystem. He added that mobile money companies should prepare for possible taxation.

The taxing of mobile money has been a dicey issue in Ghana for a while now. But Mr Andah’s comment indicates that the government is purposely targeting the income the mobile money companies earn from doing individual transactions.

“I think the focus is to understand the value of money that the mobile money operators are making. So, the transactions, cash in-cash out, those monies that the operators are making, the government should be able to tax that money.”

“As to whether the actual transactions being made by subscribers should be taxed, we have not started that discussion. But as far as the money they are making from subscribers for transactions they are doing and they are not reporting that as taxable income, we should be able to understand and tax them,” he added.

His comment is coming at a time when there is weak domestic revenue performance, thereby, causing the government to look at other sources to boost revenue.

The use of mobile money continues to grow every day with last year data mobile money grew by 43.2 per cent from the previous year, with transaction value hitting over GH¢233 billion.

Mobile money has overtaken cheques as the largest payment system in the country, as the value of cheque transactions last year was GH¢203 billion – a sure sign of the looming threats the OBG report has highlighted.