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The controversy rages on: Churches’ statutory tax obligation to the state …to pay or not to pay?
In this beautiful country called Ghana, Churches are not required to pay taxes on their properties to the state because they are considered rendering services to God. They are not required to also disclose their finances in whatever form to government. They are, therefore, exempt from payment of income tax even though they receive other favourable treatment under the law.
This practice has existed for many years during which the country had a limited number of churches which concentrated on the word of God and did not make profit margin their primary objective. Churches generate their income through offering, pledges, sponsorships, memorials, capital campaigns as a normal practice.
PROLIFERATION OF CHURCHES AND NON-PAYMENT OF TAXES
With the emergence and proliferation of thousands of churches across the country, some of which even do not have auditoriums or places of worship but use classrooms and rented accommodation for their worshipping and other day to day activities, thus generating a lot of revenue and income from their operations, it has now become imperative to revisit the law that exempts churches from the payment of taxes to the state and decide otherwise. It appears that the commercial aspect of most of these churches has overridden the main objective of rendering services to God and the cardinal objective has been to amass wealth at the expense of the State. Even the big time orthodox or traditional churches which in the past were not used to this practice, have also joined the bandwagon of commercialising their operations to raise funds for their upkeep. Some of them have established a well-furnished auditoriums and theatres with recreational facilities, where funerals, weddings, parties, private meetings, seminars and conferences among others, are held regularly and fees are charged for the use of the facilities.
PROFIT-ORIENTED PRIVATE AND ONE-MAN CHURCHES
As for the private and one-man churches, the least said about them the better. Some of them have instituted consultation fees for members who are interested in seeing their pastors, evangelists and so-called men of God for special healings and deliverances. Some of these men of God have used their intelligence to come out with special water and anointing oil which they sell at a fee to their members or congregation. Consultation fees, attract various sums of money from gullible and interested members who want to see their pastors for problems solving. Let us also don’t forget that some of these churches have established and running their own television and radio stations. These are some of the avenues being adopted to raise funds for their churches and the pastors. I was told of a particular one-man church where the pastor imposed a levy on members just to purchase a car for himself.You cannot rule out some of these so-called pastors and men of God asking their members to fill their wardrobes with clothes and other items for them and their wives.
PUBLIC ARGUMENT ABOUT CHURCHES PAYING TAX TO THE STATE
Some of these negative behaviours from leaders of some religious organisations across the country have necessitated the recent argument from the public as to whether churches should pay taxes on their incomes since they have commercialised their operations in various ways. It is recalled that in August last year, this particular issue of churches paying tax to the state came up at a forum in Accra. At that forum, the Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), made it emphatic that his outfit would conduct investigations into the activities of all churches in the country with the view to tax them based on their level of business transactions. Whether what he said a year ago has been carried out is something we need to know as Ghanaians. It appears that at times, people placed in positions of authority made profound policy statements but failed to act on them and that has been the bane in our dear country.
PASTORS’ ARGUMENT ON PAYMENT OF TAX BY THE CHURCH
Currently, some of our well established and profound pastors in the country have joined the fray in this particular argument as to whether the church should pay tax to the state. For instance, Dr. Lawrence Tetteh, the leader of the Worldwide Miracle Outreach was reported to have taken a swipe at people who were demanding the taxation of churches by the state. He said in a speech recently that, “Today, very ignorant people wake up and say the church should be taxed. That is an insult from the economic point of view; that is double taxation.” He went further, “Remember in the history of the Bible, we had ungodly people who asked the church to be taxed. What people lose sight of is that, the people you think are very rich, you can count them; you live in Ghana, how many pastors use Land Cruisers? If you take the few of us (pastors) that seem to be doing well, we are not more than ten”. According to him if you look at Ghana, but for the church, the nation would have been as illiterate as some nations of the sub-region. We should applaud the church, he said. He asked; When you tax the church what do you gain?
DR LAWRENCE TETTEH’S VIEWPOINT ON THE CHURCH
Honestly, my good friend Dr. Lawrence Tetteh has admitted that only few pastors including him, which I can confidently agree, are doing well. Dr. Tetteh is my greatest pal and I know his commitment to his pastoral duties and not like other profit making pastors, but I shudder to disagree with him about his views on pastors not to pay tax, even though they have commercialised their activities to make money. Yes, some of these churches have complemented the efforts of government by providing mission schools to train our youth in addition to supporting community activities and these are quite commendable. However, in a situation in which the chunk of these small churches continues to hide behind the pulpits to amass wealth without paying a dime as taxation to the state is to me not relevant and should not be entertained whatsoever.
REV ODONKOR’S ASSERTION ON THE CHURCH BEING TAXED
The Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), Rev. Dr. Gordon Nii Noi Odonkor, also in an address, admitted that it was just and fair for the government to tax churches on business they do. To him, churches are not island in the running of the State and once they engaged in a profit-making venture, they needed to be taxed on those activities. However, he said, offertory and tithes, especially where they were used for social work, could not be described as business for them to attract tax. He said in an interview with the press that “if churches collect offering and use the offering for charity work, it will be unfair to tax them. But where we do business and especially where these businesses are for individual pastors and these monies go into individual pockets, I think it is Christian, it is fair and it is just to tax them like all other businesses”.
I believe most Ghanaians including me, appreciate the thought and viewpoint of Rev. Odonkor on this particular issue and will suggest that the law that exempts churches from paying tax to the State should be re-examined and amended so that churches operating on commercial lines should be roped in the tax net to generate enough revenue to carry out developmental agenda of government. So many avenues to generate revenue for the state, remain untapped while the people are being constantly burdened with all kinds of taxations that are making life unbearable for Ghanaians.
The Ghana Revenue Authority must initiate moves to ensure that individual churches that are scattered across the country and are making profits at the expense of the State are duly registered and taxed for the betterment of our dear country.
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By Charles Neequaye
All over the world, it has been recognised that nations who have developed, paid attention to education and continue to do so. If we pay lip service to the development of our educational system, we might as well forget about our development in the foreseeable future.
In order for effective teaching and learning to happen, the teacher who is the centre of it all, must be well motivated. Every person working in an office, every parliamentarian, every minister or deputy minister, all the way up to the first gentleman of the land, owes his or her status to a teacher.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, our leaders who are the decision makers, do not seem to care very much about the welfare of teachers. The leadership of the various teacher unions, also appear not to be doing their job as is expected of them, leaving the teacher who had worked for over a year without being paid, frustrated.
The lack of seriousness that is attached to teachers’ issues is very worrying. My parents were teachers so I am very passionate about teachers’ issues. Gone are the days that we used to say that teachers will get their reward in Heaven.
Now those in the teaching profession are mostly youthful and they have a different mindset from that of our parents. They do not want their reward in Heaven, they want it here on this very earth.
A teacher sees his colleague who he was academically better than in school, from the same background socially, becomes a Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), an Member of Parliament (MP) or a Government Appointee and overnight, this guy becomes wealthy and you say he the teacher, should wait for his reward in Heaven?
His going there is not guaranteed anyway, so if he or she does not make it to Heaven, then what? Promises of government after government to teachers, remain unfulfilled and so they become disillusioned and demotivated to ensure effective teaching and learning.
I read a story of a lady, who as a child was suffering from Dyslexia but her teacher gave her the needed attention to help her and this even led her teacher to run into problems with the school authorities, resulting in the loss of her job. This lady grew up and became a famous actress and won an Oscar.
She then gave the prize money attached to the award, which was three million dollars, to her teacher who put her career on the line to help her out of her dyslexia challenge as a child.
There are many such teachers in our educational system because teaching is a calling, like medicine, like nursing etc. and therefore teachers who are the first point of call before we can climb the ladder to become the engineers, the lawyers, accountants and the rest, deserve special attention.
What is even important is the crucial role they play in shaping the moral character of future leaders which is invaluable.
Let us all, especially our leaders, place a high premium on the teacher who is at the centre of our educational system and who can make or unmake our future as a nation. How do you ask a teacher to go to a place, far removed from his or her parents and for a year and above not pay any salary to him or her?
How is the teacher to survive? If the same thing was done to any of our leaders, especially the leaders of the various teacher unions, will they be happy? How do they expect the teachers to survive and also be motivated to deliver quality teaching? Funds must be found to immediately resolve their unpaid salaries do they can be in the right frame of mind to do their very precious job. The teaching profession, in my view, is number one, when ranking professions because as an advert displays “If you can read this, thank a teacher”. Let us give our teachers their due. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike. I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate.
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning
Merari Alomele’s
• A female student walking away from some male students
or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them, I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan.
It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
Proofread
Searching for the Holy Child
GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike.
I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man-thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them,
I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan. It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
This article was first published on Saturday, March 18, 1996
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