Finance Minister asked to increase ‘Akpeteshie’ tax …

• Posted on April 23, 2014April 23, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The head pastor of Last Stop Prayer Camp, Prophet Julius Attarchie, has admonished the Minister of Finance, Seth Terker to push for an upward increase in taxes on locally produced alcohol, ‘akpeteshie’, and adopt measures to collect those levies instead of asking churches to pay tax.

Barely a week ago, the finance minister announced that the government is considering measures to ensure that churches which are making profits alongside the propagation of the gospel pay tax.

The pronouncement by the minister got the needed attention of players in the Christian fraternity, of which prophet Attarchie is one.

The prophet explained in an interview with the ‘Daily Heritage’ that as a Christian-dominated country, “we need to discourage alcoholism and the best way to do so is for the government to increase taxes on akpeteshie to discourage people from consuming it.”

Speaking at the final day of a five-day Easter retreat, the head pastor reiterated that he is not against the payment of taxes by pastors if they are doing their private businesses, but not in relation to church service.

“What we know is that Non-Governmental-Organizations are not paying taxes and churches too are like NGO, so they need to enjoy the same tax exemptions, but that does not mean that if you are a pastor and you are operating profit earning business you need not pay tax,” he explained.

Touching on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he admonished Ghanaians to learn lessons from it; stay away from sin and live a life which is worthy of the life of Christ when on earth and by so doing will see the glory of God.

Source: Daily Heritage