Michael Siaw Larbi

Michael leads the tax and advisory practice and writes regularly on tax and regulatory developments in Ghana, including the guide to the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority Act, 2026.

The position he takes

That most tax exposure in Ghana starts with ordinary obligations filed late or at the wrong rate, compounding quietly until an officer arrives and asks for four years of records at once. Withholding tax is the usual culprit: fifty suppliers a month at the wrong rate becomes a material assessment inside two years, and nothing flags it because each individual error is small.

On documentation

Almost every assessment he has defended successfully was defended with paperwork that already existed. The ones that go badly are the ones where the paperwork was never created. That view shapes how the practice approaches both compliance and transfer pricing: defensibility first, documentation second.

Where clients meet him

Usually at the point the Ghana Revenue Authority has already written. He takes those calls personally, because objection windows are short and what is handed over first shapes what remains arguable.

Before the partnership

Roles with Goldman Sachs in London and PwC Ghana, and then mPharma, where he was Country Head of Finance and later Global Head of Investor Relations. Audit, financial reporting, corporate finance, taxation and investor relations is an unusual spread, and it means he has been on the receiving end of an audit as well as the delivering end of one.

Teaching and the tax record

He founded MSL Business School, which prepares students for the ICAG, CITG and CIMA qualifications, and leads the research and technology direction of TaxLawGH, a platform that organises Ghana's tax laws, cases, rates, deadlines and fiscal developments. His academic and professional record includes national and international distinctions in accountancy, management accounting and law.

What he does here

Assurance, financial and business advisory work, on the technical position and on the commercial one, for organisations at very different stages of growth. The combination is the point: the tax answer that is technically correct and commercially unusable is not an answer.