Understand Ghana's indirect taxes — VAT principles, customs & excise duties, communication service tax, and cross-border trade compliance.
Indirect Taxation covers the taxes that apply to transactions rather than income — primarily VAT, customs and excise duties, and the Communication Service Tax. Ghana's VAT system is destination-based and applies to a wide range of taxable supplies. Candidates develop practical skills in VAT accounting, customs classification and valuation, the drawback regime, and free zone compliance. This paper is highly practical — candidates must be able to handle real client compliance and advisory scenarios involving indirect taxes.
Destination-based vs. origin-based taxation; cross-border goods and services; imported service reverse charge mechanism.
Who must register, registration and de-registration procedures, threshold, and group registration.
Definition, place, time and value of supply; goods on own use, gifts, agents, partnerships, and group members.
Input and output tax; VAT returns; VAT refund procedures; bad debt relief; special schemes (retail schemes, VAT relief purchase orders).
What is exempt vs. zero-rated; the impact on input tax recovery; partial exemption calculations.
Who is liable, what services are covered, computation and payment procedures.
WTO customs valuation, tariff classification (HS codes), origin rules, customs warehousing, deferment arrangements, and duty drawback.
Excise control principles, computation of excise duty, free zone types, controls, and entry procedures.
VAT questions often involve mixed supplies (some taxable, some exempt). Always identify the correct VAT treatment of EACH element before computing output tax — applying the wrong rate to the entire supply is a common and costly error.
Indirect Tax Specialist
Customs Consultant
VAT Compliance Manager
Trade Finance Adviser
GRA Customs Officer
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