Economy enters most data-driven tax era — Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah 2026 outlook report

THE country’s tax architecture is becoming more data-driven, more enforcement-oriented and more ambitious than at any point in its modern fiscal history, the inaugural 2026 Tax Outlook published by law firm, Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah.

The report, authored by Managing Partner, Seth Asante, and Partner, Godwin O. Nkrumah, warns that the compliance environment for businesses and individuals was shifting fundamentally as the country approached the formal conclusion of its International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, expected in August 2026.

“Discrepancies will be detected earlier, scrutiny will be more targeted, and tolerance for informal tax positions will narrow considerably”, the report states. 

The outlook examines the legislative and administrative measures that shaped Ghana's tax system in 2025 and sets out a detailed forecast for the year ahead. 

It concludes that the country was at a crossroads, with the potential to transform its tax system to be modern, efficient and capable of sustainably funding national development priorities.

Fiscal crisis context

According to the report, tax policy developments in 2025 were the direct consequence of a macroeconomic crisis that fundamentally reshaped the country's fiscal architecture.

Context

Following years of expansionary fiscal policy and rising debt service costs, the country effectively lost access to international capital markets in late 2021. 

The Ghana Cedi depreciated by over 50 per cent against the United States dollar in 2022 alone, inflation surged past 50 per cent, and by mid-2022 it had become clear that the public debt trajectory was unsustainable.

In May 2023, the government secured a $3 billion, 36-month Extended Credit Facility arrangement with the IMF, accompanied by a comprehensive Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). 

The scale of the restructuring, one of the largest sovereign debt restructurings in Africa's recent history, underscored the severity of the fiscal imbalance.

With external borrowing effectively unavailable, the government's ability to finance expenditure became almost entirely dependent on domestic revenue mobilisation. 

Nominal tax collections grew significantly year-on-year, with total tax revenue reaching approximately GH¢153.5 billion in 2025, up from GH¢113.4 billion in 2024, representing growth of around 35 per cent in nominal terms.

However, the report cautions that a significant portion of the increase reflected the inflationary expansion of the tax base rather than genuine structural broadening of the taxpayer population.

The outlook identifies the formal conclusion of the IMF Programme as the defining event of Ghana's fiscal calendar. 

For the first time since 2022, Ghana will be managing its fiscal position without the discipline, financing support and external validation of an IMF-supervised arrangement.

Whether fiscal discipline holds will depend on global commodity prices, the trajectory of international interest rates, and crucially, the government's willingness to maintain expenditure restraint in an environment where political pressures are building.

An important structural development of 2025 was the overhaul of the value added tax regime. 

The Value Added Tax Act, 2025, which came into force on January 1, 2026, abolishes the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy, recouples the National Health Insurance Levy and Ghana Education Trust Fund Levy to the same base as VAT, and introduces input tax deductibility for those levies.

The changes reduce the effective indirect tax rate from 21.9 per cent to 20 per cent, while materially improving the neutrality of the system.

The report points out that the most immediate compliance challenge was the migration from the VAT Flat Rate Scheme to the standard VAT mechanism.

Businesses that have historically accounted for VAT at a flat three per cent on their turnover must now track input and output tax separately, issue tax invoices that meet statutory requirements, and file periodic returns.

Real estate shock

The inaugural BELA 2026 Tax Outlook pointed out that the real estate sector faces the starkest single rate change. The preferential five per cent flat VAT rate previously available to estate developers, has been abolished. 

Residential and commercial property development now falls within the unified VAT framework at an effective rate of 20 per cent, a quadrupling of the previous rate.

The report notes that in a market where housing affordability is already severely constrained, price pass-through risks further excluding middle-income buyers from the formal property market.

In the extractives sector, a new sliding-scale royalty regime came into force in March 2026 with a base rate of five per cent of gross mineral revenue rising to as much as 12 per cent where gold prices exceed US$4,500 per ounce.

To partially offset this increase, the government reduced the Growth and Sustainability Levy applicable to mining companies from three per cent to one percent of gross production. 

The net effect, however, remains a significant increase in the effective fiscal burden on mining operations.

On the digital economy front, the report states that the government has confirmed its intention to introduce interim provisions implementing a significant economic presence rule ahead of a full review of the Income Tax Act.

The rule would subject non-resident digital service providers, including streaming platforms, cloud services, digital advertising networks and online marketplaces, to Ghanaian income tax on revenues derived from Ghanaian users without the requirement of a physical permanent establishment in Ghana.

The Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025, brings digital asset activities within the formal regulatory perimeter of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bank of Ghana, though the report notes that the tax treatment of virtual asset transactions remains unresolved.

The operationalisation of the Integrated Tax Administration System on April 1, 2026 represents a step change in the Ghana Revenue Authority's ability to cross-reference taxpayer data against third-party information from banks, the Lands Commission, the Office of the Registrar of Companies and other government agencies.

The full rollout of Fiscal Electronic Devices, certified point-of-sale terminals that transmit transaction data to the GRA's central system in real time, means that for businesses within the regime, the era in which VAT compliance risk was concentrated in the annual audit cycle is effectively over.

New dispute forum

The report also notes the operationalisation of the Independent Tax Appeals Board (ITAB), with the Revenue Administration Regulations which came into force on November 7, 2025. 

The ITAB provides an independent, specialised forum for tax appeals that sits between the GRA and the High Court.

The outlook expects a significant number of tax disputes to be filed with the ITAB in 2026 as taxpayers test the new forum.

Therefore, 2026 marks an inflection point for Ghana's tax system, the BELA outlook report stated. 

For taxpayers, the report states that the era in which tax risk could be managed through periodic engagement with auditors is giving way to continuous, data-enabled oversight.

"The stakes for fiscal sustainability, investor confidence and the broader credibility of Ghana's economic governance could not be higher," the outlook warns.