E-Commerce And Taxation

Social Commerce and E-Commerce in Ghana has been growing steadily over the years. In 2020, digital payments increased by 102% with mobile money transactions growing over 200%.

The rapid adoption of ecommerce and online transactions has attracted the attention of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

According to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), they are prepping a framework and will formally introduce an e-commerce tax to increase government revenue in the second quarter of 2021.

The GRA is targetting to collect some GHC 60 billion in 2021 to support national expenditure.

Taxes = Increased Costs?

Many of the players in the ecommerce sector say they are ready to comply with the new framework but some fear the introduction of taxes on their ecommerce activities might slow activities.

Depending on the amount of taxes they have to pay, industry players would have to consider either absorbing the taxes or passing it on to the consumer which will would lead to increase costs nevertheless.

Social Commerce

What about social commerce? During 2020, many individuals and small businesses resorted to selling through social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to help drive revenue.

Most of the revenue collection came through mobile money transactions.

At the moment, there’s not much data to determine the size of the social commerce space and there’s also no mechanism to track these sales.

So how will the GRA tackle this?

It remains to be seen.