CAN WE HAVE A HAPPY WORKFORCE & CREATE AN ENTERPRISE CULTURE IN GHANA - BY TWEAKING THE TAX SYSTEM?

When one asked, in a previous article posted on this blog, if some of Ghana's many economists could tell one, precisely what catastrophe would befall our homeland Ghana, if the government abolished personal income tax and put our nation on the world map as the territory with the lowest business tax rate on the surface of the planet Earth, one did not receive even a single answer.

In fact, I am still waiting for answers to those two queries of mine. However, it would seem to me, that abolishing personal income tax, in a newly oil-rich African nation, would be a good and sensible way to redistribute some of that new national income - by allowing hard-working Ghanaians to keep all the income they earn.

Surely, on the political front, would that also not be an effective way of negating one of the key pillars-of-falsehood, on which the calumny that the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their mercenary partners in the Ghanaian media world's "Enkoyie" propaganda represents, now rests: that the ruling party has failed "to put money into the pockets of Ghanaians" (as if that were the political equivalent of a central bank's Quantitative Easing - to be indulged in at a whim by the government of the day!)?

Furthermore, allowing those whose hard work keeps our nation afloat daily, to keep the reward from their graft, would doubtless make them feel that the Ghanaian nation-state was indeed appreciative of their contribution to nation-building - particularly as it is the blood, sweat, tears and endless belt-tightening of working people, at the behest of successive governments over the decades since gaining our independence, which has led us to where we are today, as a people. Indeed, let's not forget that working people have literally been at it, since Ghana became an independent nation, in March 1957 - always sacrificing for the common good.

It would appear to one that abolishing personal income tax would actually bring some amount of relief, particularly for those in the formal sector of the Ghanaian economy, who are so unfairly overburdened in supporting our system - whiles millions in the so-called "informal sector", who often earn a great deal more than those in the formal sector, get away with not paying even a pesewa, as personal income tax.

Above all, would enabling Ghana to be pointed out as the nation with the world's lowest business tax rate, not enable the owners of businesses here, to invest more of their profits in making them more competitive commercial entities, able to hold their own against competitors globally - and employ more workers as they expand their operations as a result of that?

Finally, surely, every businessperson in Ghana, including even those currently off the radar screens of officialdom in the "informal sector", would happily pay their fair share of taxes, were Ghana to have the world's lowest business tax regime - and would that not paradoxically lead to a widening of the tax net and a dramatic increase in state revenue from that particular source? And would that not be a splendid end of year reward for all those whose hard work and ingenuity keeps our economy in a healthy state, dear reader?

One certainly hopes that the powers that be will dare to think the unthinkable - and do what the mostly-unimaginative souls who advise them on such matters will tell them is an impossibility: help make Ghana a nation of fulfilled and happy workers, as well as create an enterprise culture in Ghana, by tweaking the tax system. A word to the wise...

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