An Economist and legal practitioner, David Ofosu-Dorte has advocated for a sealing on net incomes beyond which government cannot impose taxes.

According to him, the government’s fondness for imposing taxes is only rendering citizens poorer, when it is expected to rather make them prosperous.

“Now individuals and cooperate citizens cannot be said to be prospering if all the monies that they get are taken away from them.

“My first recommendation is that we ought to be thinking of limits beyond which government cannot tax,” he said.

He was speaking at a Constitution Day public lecture on the theme “The 1992 Constitution -A Fundamental Law For our Prosperity or a Well-Crafted Guide For Our Economic Doom" on Thursday.   

Ofosu-Dorte, Chairman of AB & David Africa, a pan-African law firm, explained that the tax measures rolled out by the government had not met the purpose for which they were established.

“Energy levy, the energy sector owes more than it owned before this fund was introduced, sanitation levy and pollution levy, its purpose was to help address the sanitation issue in the country…and I bet if you speak to those in charge what they will tell you is their problem is lack of funding.

“Then we have the energy sector levy - 20 pesewas per litre on diesel and petrol 18 pesewas on LPG, and national fiscal stabilization levy 2013 to levy taxes imposed on company and institutions for physical stabilization. Is our physical regime stable …  it definitely is not stable,” he added.

This, he said paints a picture as though the system did not support the citizens to attain a good standard of living.

“It sounds as if Ghanaians have no right to earn net income or disposable income and anytime we seem to be improving income we must be levied with something that will enable us to take the money and give it to persons that we queue to elect every four years so that they make our lives better but they end up making our lives worse,” he noted.