Government has predicted the Minority in Parliament will be proved wrong after stirring up a debate on the introduction of new taxes to be announced by the Finance Minister on Thursday.

"I can assure you we can disregard these comments from the Minority", the Deputy Information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said on Joy FM's Top Story Monday.

He pointed out it has become a strategy of the Minority to raise false alarms ahead of government's reading of budget statements.

Ahead of the budget reading in November 2017, the Minority claimed the government was about to introduce mobile money tax but no such plan was announced.

While the deputy minister would not confirm or deny an increase in VAT, he maintained, the government will introduce measures "aimed at ensuring the government of Ghana gets more revenue to fund what is outstanding of the programmes of the Akufo-Addo administration."

He said the plans which will be outlined in the Finance minister's mid-year budget statement on Thursday will "cut across tax compliance and broadening the base" and that Ghanaians "will be pleased with what they hear".

But he was categorical in rejecting additional claims made by opposition MP and member of the Finance committee in Parliament Isaac Adongo who said the government will be taxing businesses even if they make losses.

Photo: Isaac Adongo

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP claimed government has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to introduce a minimum corporate tax of 2.5%. This tax, he said, would mean businesses in the red may have to go to the bank to borrow to pay taxes.

He said this was what the IMF meant when it stated in its report recommending that government does a "holistic review of the tax system, reassessing key rates like the VAT, corporate income tax, excises and personal income tax".

Isaac Adongo said the IMF doesn't have to put this minimum corporate tax in its staff reports because it wants to give the government space to save its face.

But the deputy minister described this argument "a figment of the minority's own imagination".