Ofori-Atta lied; it’s not true over 6,000 lawyers don’t pay tax – Tony Forson

The President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), Tony Forson has accused Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta of telling lies over claims that over 6,000 lawyers in Ghana do not pay taxes.

Earlier this year, the Finance Minister in an interview with Asaase Radio said out of the 60,000 business people who are not paying taxes, 6,000 are lawyers.

“..we got about 60,000 businesspeople who were not paying taxes, some 5,000 or 6,000 lawyers are not. Some doctors [are not paying income tax]…so you begin to see all of these professionals, all of us on social media ranting against the government and [realise] that most of these people are not even paying taxes,” Ken Ofori-Atta said.

Reacting to the claim in an interview with Starr FM, Mr. Tony Forson who is the President of the Ghana Bar Association says the Finance Minister peddled lies.

According to him, the number of lawyers in the country alone is just in excess of 3,000 and hence Ken Ofori-Atta was not truthful.

“Unfortunately, a statement was made by the minister of finance that over 6,000 lawyers don’t pay tax. That’s very unfortunate because there was no basis for that,” the GBA president said.

Mr. Tony Forson added, “Absolutely false, first of all, we don’t have 6,000 lawyers in Ghana, It’s likely in excess of 3,000, so the data is wrong. There are so many lawyers who are in government service who pay tax directly, so the statement is just patently false.”

Describing the claim by the Finance Minister as unfortunate, the GBA president adds that he assumes Ken Ofori-Atta was misled by the person that gave him the information.