Parliament passes Customs and Excise Amendment Bill

Parliament Friday passed the Customs and Excise (Duties and other Taxes) Amendment) Bill, 2013 to re-impose a 20 per cent import duty on telephone sets and to review the duty on plastic products.

The telephone sets include mobile, cellular and satellite phones.

The government removed import duty on telephone sets in a bid to reduce prices of telephone sets to encourage usage.

However, the gesture, according to the report of the Finance Committee, had not yielded the desired results as prices of telephone sets had increased over the period contrary to the government’s intention.

“There is, therefore, the need to reintroduce import tax on telephone sets to generate revenue and also create an even field for locally manufactured telephone handsets to favourably compete with imported ones.

It is estimated that the imposition of the levy on telephone handsets for the remaining half of 2013 would accrue GH¢49.8 million while the tax  on plastic products would yield GH¢26 million.

While the Minority spokesperson on Finance, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, doubted that the amount could be realised, a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, who moved the motion for the bill to be passed, argued that the amount would be realised.

In another development, the House also passed the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2013 to enable the VAT to cover the supply and import of telephone handsets.

The existing law was amended to exclude the application of the tax to imported telephone handsets but following the proposed imposition of a 20 per cent import duty on telephone handsets, it became necessary to further amend the Act to apply to mobile handsets imported into the country.