MONROVIA, June 28 (LINA) – The Minister of Finance and Development Planning has said that Liberia is one nation in the West African region with the lowest tax regime, contrary to comments and assumptions that the nation’s taxes are high.
According to Tweah, there is a perception among members of the business community that the nation’s tax rates are very high, adding that such assumption is not true.
“We are among the lowest,” Tweah said, adding that “Tax GDP is low from any range whether it is corporate income tax or personal income tax, if you look at the effective tax rate of 9.6 percent of income in Liberia and you apply that to the average in West Africa that rate will be tax around 14.5 percent.”
The Liberian Finance Minister was speaking at the start of the USAID Liberia Development Conference which opens in Monrovia on Thursday.
He added that Liberia is not getting a lot of resources because they are mostly going out and as such by strengthening the enforcement regime, the minimum resource factor as well as the macro resource factor will be one of the strongest ways to strengthen taxation in the country.
He said the nation looks forward to sharing some ideas in the next few days on taxation management, adding that domestic resource mobilization is the key area in which USAID has worked with Liberia to ensure that country raises more tax.
“We make investment in raising taxes which is the core support area and that is going to be the major focus of the administration going forward,” Tweah added.
