Is the Burden Too Small? – Effective Tax Rates in Ghana

This paper examines capital income taxation in Ghana. We calculate effective marginal tax rates (EMTR) and effective average tax rates (EATR) using an extended Devereux-Griffith methodology to accommodate for tax incentives - an exercise that has not been done so far for Ghana. We find that the wide range of tax incentives leads to a high variation of effective average tax rates in Ghana. Tax holidays and preferential income tax rates lower the effective tax burden to a significant extent and encourage individual tax avoidance strategies. Furthermore our results confirm previous findings that tax holidays, effectively reducing EATR, favor high-profit short-lived investment projects raising doubts about their rationale.