The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has been asked by the Chamber of Independent Power Producers to stop the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) from charging VAT, GETfund and NHIL levies on electricity.
The GRA on May 4, 2020, in a release, announced the directives, indicating that such services will no longer be zero-rated.
Portions of their letter said: “It has come to our notice that some electricity producing and power supplying companies do charge VAT, GETfund and NHIL, at zero rates to the Electricity Company of Ghana Limited contrary to the Value Added Tax Act, 2013 (Act 870).”
“We wish to state that Section 36 of the Act which provides for zero-rating of supply refers to the Second Schedule of the Act. However, the Second Schedule of the Act did not list supply of energy and capacity charge as one of the items that should be zero-rated,” GRA said in a statement signed by its Acting Commissioner-General, Ammishadai Owusu-Amoah.
The Chamber also asked for the disclosure of the “percentage these add-on taxes occupy on the End User Tariff is the limitation for PURC to give cost compensatory tariff to fix the Annual Revenue Requirement shortfalls of the sector.”
They came out later to deny issuing such a directive, following a call from the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, Adam Mutawakilu for a withdrawal.
However the Chamber of Independent Power Producers wants the GRA to issue an official communique to announce this withdraw.
“Further to GRA’s denials as published on www.ghanaweb.com of Friday, 16th May, 2020, we would like to call on the Ghana Revenue Authority to formally circulate a letter to the concerned stakeholders in the power sector withdrawing their earlier directive and direct the Electricity Company of Ghana to specifically desist from charging Ghanaians those taxes with immediate effect.”
