This is the most expensive thing we find, and it is almost always found by accident. A business applies a relief for years on the strength of a certificate or an approval letter, and meets the full liability with interest when somebody finally tests it.

Registration is not exemption

Registration with an investment authority, or a benefit named in an approval, does not by itself create a tax exemption. The exemption must have a basis traceable through the Exemptions Act 2022 (Act 1083), the applicable tax legislation, any required legislative instrument, and any approval that Parliament or the Ghana Revenue Authority had to give. Several conditions must hold at once.

Why nobody catches it

Because the benefit works. Returns are filed applying it, they are accepted, and years pass without challenge. Acceptance of a return is not agreement with its basis, and the GRA can look back. By the time it is tested the exposure has compounded across every year it was claimed.

What the review produces

A written position on each benefit you apply: what it is, what the claimed basis is, whether that basis holds, and what the exposure is if it does not. Where it does hold, you have documentation to hand an officer. Where it does not, you have a decision to make while you still have options.

The uncomfortable findingSometimes the answer is that a benefit you have relied on for years has no basis. That conversation is unpleasant and it is considerably better than the alternative, which is an assessment covering every open year with interest attached.

Act 1083

The Exemptions Act, which governs how exemptions are granted

Every year

Exposure compounds across each period the benefit was claimed

2 to 4 weeks

Typical review, per entity

Scope

What the review covers

Every benefit, not only the ones you are worried about, because the risky one is usually not the one people ask us to check.

Benefit inventory

Identifying every exemption, relief, concession, incentive and preferential rate being applied, across income tax, VAT, customs duty and any sector-specific charge.

Basis tracing

Following each one back through Act 1083, the relevant tax statute, any legislative instrument and any required approval, and recording where the chain holds and where it breaks.

Exposure quantification

Where a basis does not hold, the amount at stake across each open period, with interest modelled, so the decision is made on a number rather than on anxiety.

Documentation pack

For the benefits that do hold, a file you can hand an officer, which shortens any review considerably.

Process

How the review runs

Short and documentary. The work is in the tracing, not in the fieldwork.

Privilege and disclosureWhere the review may identify a material exposure, we will discuss with you at the outset how the work should be structured and whether your lawyers should be involved before findings are put in writing.

Inventory

Every benefit being applied, drawn from returns, approvals, correspondence and the ledger rather than from a list somebody remembers.

Week 1

Tracing

Each benefit followed back to its statutory basis, with the chain documented.

Weeks 1 to 3

Findings discussion

Put to you before anything is written up. Frequently the basis exists and simply was not where we looked.

Week 3

Report

A written position on each benefit, with exposure quantified where a basis does not hold.

Week 4

Decision support

Where remediation or disclosure is the right course, we take you through the options and the likely outcomes.

After the report

Engagement

Fees, timing and who does the work

Fee basis

Fixed feeSet on the number of benefits and entities. Any subsequent disclosure or negotiation quoted separately.

Who does the work

Partner-ledThis is interpretation work with material consequences. It is not delegated.

Timeline

Two to four weeksPer entity, from receipt of returns and approvals.

Indicative only. Every fee is quoted in the proposal, before any work starts, and held unless the scope changes.

Questions

Questions on exemptions

Does an investment registration give us a tax exemption?

No, and this is expensive to get wrong. An exemption needs a basis traceable through the Exemptions Act 2022 (Act 1083), the applicable tax legislation, any required legislative instrument and any approval the GRA or Parliament had to give. A certificate is not, on its own, that basis.

Our returns have been accepted for years. Doesn't that settle it?

No. Acceptance of a return is not agreement with its basis. The Ghana Revenue Authority can look back across open periods, and by then the exposure has compounded across every year the benefit was claimed.

What if the review finds we have no basis?

Then you have a decision to make while you still have options: correct the position going forward, make a voluntary disclosure, or provide for the exposure knowingly. All three are better than being found, and voluntary disclosure usually produces a materially better outcome.

Can you review only the benefit we are worried about?

We would rather not. In our experience the benefit people ask us to check is usually fine, and the exposure is in one nobody thought to mention. The inventory step exists for that reason.

Should our lawyers be involved?

Sometimes, and we will raise it at the outset rather than after findings are in writing. Where a review may identify material historic exposure, how the work is structured matters.

Read before you brief us

ServiceGRA tax audit support, if it has already been challenged ServiceCorporate tax compliance ServiceTransfer pricing under L.I. 2412

Next step

Tell us which reliefs you claim, and where they came from.

If you cannot answer the second part, that is the reason to do this review now rather than after somebody asks.

Request an exemption review Speak to a partner

Contact

+233 53 362 2433 info@elixiraudits.com

1 Alex Nkrumah Street, Airport West, Accra

Also under Tax

All of Tax →

Corporate tax compliance and returns

Annual returns, quarterly instalments, capital allowances and the reconciliation between accounting profit and taxable profit, handled as a routine rather than as an annual emergency.

GRA tax audit and objection support

Support through a tax audit, an assessment or a demand: the correspondence, the evidence, the objection within the statutory window, and the negotiation. Deadlines here are short and unforgiving, which is why the first call matters more than the last.

Transfer pricing under L.I. 2412

Documentation, benchmarking and the annual return under the Transfer Pricing Regulations 2020 (L.I. 2412), for businesses with related party transactions. And, before any of that, the harder question of whether the charge itself would survive a review.

VAT, NHIL and GETFund under Act 1151

VAT registration, monthly returns and the reconciliation between output tax, input tax and the ledger. Since Act 1151 took effect we have been reworking input tax positions, because the levies became claimable and most businesses are still treating them as a cost.

PAYE, SSNIT and expatriate tax

PAYE, SSNIT, Tier 3 relief, benefits in kind, bonus treatment and expatriate taxation. Payroll sits between finance and HR and frequently belongs to neither, which is exactly why officers look there first.