Shippers in the Volta and Oti Regions have been sensitised on reversal of the discount on benchmark value that took effect from March this year.
The sensitisation was part of events that marked the 67th meeting of the Volta Regional Shippers Committee held at Aflao on 19th May 2022.
The discount on benchmark value policy was reviewed from 50 percent to 30 percent for general goods, and from 30 percent to 10 percent for vehicles.
A Principal Revenue Officer from the Customs Division of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Mr. Jonathan Dabrah, took shippers through the reversal policy and affirmed that the benchmark value is essentially an internal risk assessment tool to establish whether a value can be accepted under transaction value or rejected based on tenets of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement on Customs valuation.
He noted that the benchmark value is the reference value for assessing whether a particular declared value that deviated from the benchmark had a valuation risk of under-invoicing, over-invoicing or transfer pricing.
He said government has decided to phase out the discount policy gradually, after engaging with stakeholders in the trading and manufacturing industry.
The meeting also sensitised shippers on some of the policies implemented by the GRA and recent initiatives that impact business: such as the discount values on goods and services, the GRA taxpayers’ portal, the four percent Value Added Tax (VAT) flat rate, and electronic transactions levy (E-levy).
