The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has come forward to justify its decision to levy taxes on individuals such as bloggers, brand influencers, and MCs who earn income in the digital space. Taxing earnings generated online has been a topic of global discussion, including in Ghana.

While conventional sources of income are relatively straightforward to tax, digital earnings present unique challenges. The GRA's move to consider taxing bloggers and similar entities has raised various concerns.

However, Edward Gyambra, the Commissioner responsible for the domestic tax revenue division of the GRA, clarified in an interview with Citi News that this expansion of the tax base does not entail the creation of a new tax. Instead, he asserted that it is equitable for businesses generating income to contribute their fair share to the national revenue.

He further elucidated that the GRA's objective is to broaden the tax base to encompass all businesses, regardless of whether they operate in the digital realm or offline.

“Some people doing business online is something that is on the blog globally and if you remember last year, we also launched our e-commerce taxation and as part of getting online people to pay taxes all these players will be brought to book to ensure that they also pay their bit of taxes to the country.”

“We are expanding the tax net, and it doesn’t mean we are introducing a new tax. If you are generating income from any business, that income is taxable and so if you sit behind your computer and create content and generate income from that, we will tax that income,” he added.