The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced that with effect from midnight of April 2, the Electronic Transfer Levey (E-levy) has been scrapped.
This follows President John Mahama’s assent to the Bill passed by Parliament to that effect earlier in the day.
“We wish to inform you that the President of the Republic of Ghana has assented to the Electronic Transfer Levy Act, 2022 (Act 1075) and the Electronic Transfer Levy (Amendment) Act, 2022 (Act 1089) bill, which abolishes the 1% E-Levy. This is expected to take effect from today 2nd April 2025,” a letter issued by the Domestic Tax Revenue Division of the GRA to charging entities read.
It said “In accordance with our previous communication regarding implementation guidelines, this letter serves as formal authorization for you to proceed with the deployment of the “no charge” configuration on your platforms.”
The GRA proceeded to communicate the following guidelines:
1. The GRA Electronic Transfer Levy Management and Assurance System (ELMAS) will automatically return a “no charge” on all transactions posted to it by entities from midnight.
2. Charging Entities must cease applying the 1% E-Levy from midnight on all their channels.
3. Charging Entities must immediately process refunds for any E-Levy amounts deducted from customers effective today 2. April 2025. Entities are to establish an expedited refund process to handle such cases promptly and maintain proper documentation of all refunds processed. Reports of such refunds must be submitted to GRA.
4. Charging Entities are to take the necessary steps to file and pay all outstanding E-Levy charged and collected on all transactions that occurred before 2. April 2025.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Ken Ashigbey has indicated that the telecommunications companies are all set to charge zero percent for e-levy.
“We have had a meeting with the GRA. The notice is short, but the EMIs are working to ensure that by midnight when the GRA sets the ELMAS to zero, we will also be able to follow through and by morning, we will also be able to set our systems to charge zero percent e-levy,” he said in an interview on TV3’s News 360 on April 2.
“What will happen is that by tomorrow when you send mobile money, what you will see is that e-levy will be zero. There will be no charge,” Dr Ashigbey explained.
He assured persons who may see any deductions in their transactions not to panic.
“Because of the shortness of the notice, if there is any charge of e-levy inadvertently, the charging entity will be the one to refund because they will not be passing on any e-levy to the Consolidated Fund,” Dr Ashigbey assured.
