The Akufo-Addo government\u2019s popularity is expected to take a massive nosedive in the coming days if it attempts to increase the current 17% Value Added Tax (VAT) rate.<\/p>\n
President Akuffo-Addo, who during his presidential campaign against ex-president John Dramani Mahama, bashed the previous ruling party, NDC, over its tax hikes, according to reports, has requested for alternatives to raise revenue to cover funding gap.<\/p>\n
There are strong indications that government will increase the VAT rate from 17.5% to 21% when the Finance Minister presents the mid-year budget to Parliament\u00a0next week Thursday<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n Gabby Asare-Otchere Darko, a strong voice in the current government gave a hint in a Facebook post-Wednesday<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cWill you support a VAT increase to keep your lights on, your secondary schools filled, your school kids fed, your streets clean, your streets safe, young graduates employed, and decent, affordable homes built for working families?\u201d Gabby asked.<\/p>\n However, it appears many Ghanaians are not happy about the impending tax increases, adding that the move will only increase hardships on Ghanaians.<\/p>\n Some sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have warned the government to tread cautiously on the matter to avoid a needless backlash.<\/p>\n Some Ghanaians say the Akufo -Addo government should rather reduce the huge size of government and also focus on retrieving stolen state money.<\/p>\n Ironically, President Akufo-Addo was one of the leading figures of Alliance for Change (AFC), the pressure group which embarked on a series of anti- VAT demonstrations dubbed, \u201cKume Preko\u201d across the country in 1995.<\/p>\n Some will cynically say, \u201chistory has a way of repeating itself\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Akufo-Addo government\u2019s popularity is expected to take a massive nosedive in the coming days if it attempts to increase the current 17% Value Added Tax (VAT) rate. President Akuffo-Addo, who during his presidential campaign against ex-president John Dramani Mahama, bashed the previous ruling party, NDC, over its tax hikes, according to reports, has requested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5182,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions\/5182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}