The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has clarified that the 20% tax applicable to qualifying cross-border digital services is not a new tax, assuring consumers that the arrangement to have banks collect and remit the tax will not result in additional price increases.

Commissioner-General of the GRA, Anthony Sarpong, said the tax component was already included in payments for services such as Netflix, Google and Amazon, but the authority lacked complete visibility into the transactions and the amounts remitted.

Speaking on the new collection arrangement on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, Mr Sarpong said the system would allow the GRA to receive its share of the payments directly, instead of relying on digital service providers to remit the tax after receiving the full amount.

“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.

“However, from GRA’s point of view, we don’t have complete visibility of the total transactions and amounts that are remitted to us,” he added.

Under the new arrangement, banks will collect and remit applicable taxes on qualifying cross-border digital transactions made using Ghana-issued payment cards. The services include subscriptions to platforms such as Netflix and ChatGPT.

Mr Sarpong explained that the system would separate the tax component from the amount payable to the service provider, ensuring that the government receives the tax already incorporated into the price.

“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 said.