The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has clarified that the 20% tax on qualifying cross-border digital services is not a new levy, assuring consumers that the introduction of a bank-led collection system will not lead to further price increases.
GRA Commissioner-General Anthony Sarpong explained that taxes on services such as Netflix, Google and Amazon were already factored into the amounts customers paid. However, he said the authority had limited visibility into the total value of transactions and the amounts ultimately remitted by the service providers.
Speaking about the new collection mechanism on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, Mr Sarpong said the arrangement would enable the GRA to receive the applicable taxes directly through banks, rather than depending solely on digital service providers to remit the amounts after collecting full payments from customers.
“The fees you pay for Netflix today have VAT. If you are buying web services from Google or Amazon, there is a VAT component on it, and these entities remit to GRA on a monthly basis,” he said. He added that the existing system did not provide the authority with complete information on the volume of transactions or the corresponding tax payments.
Under the new arrangement, banks will deduct and remit the applicable taxes on qualifying cross-border digital transactions made with Ghana-issued payment cards. The affected services include subscriptions to platforms such as Netflix and ChatGPT.
Mr Sarpong said the system would separate the tax component already included in the price from the amount due to the service provider, ensuring that the government receives its share without imposing an additional charge on consumers.
“When you are paying for your Netflix, what will then happen is that this system will take the VAT which is already priced into Netflix and give that to the Government of Ghana, and the portion that belongs to Netflix would then also go to Netflix,” he explained.
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