Prophet Emmanuel Badu Kobi, Head Pastor and Founder of Glorious Wave Church International has said that it’s nonsensical for the Akufo-led government to think of taxing churches.
Addressing his congregation he added, on their next meeting he will bring NPP’s manifesto and show them where they said taxes must not be part of governance.
“I will show you the page which they said taxes must not be part of governance and taxes is a lazy man’s approach. The things I will prove to them and eventually will speak throughout the whole of Ghana. They should come and tell us where this nonsense entered their head.” He said
He reiterated Dr. Mensa Otabil’s popular quote which he said, ‘Christians are the most foolish people he has ever found in his life’.
“They are afraid of everything. But the Bible says the righteous is as bold as a lion. I am saying this ahead of time.. and if they want to tax the church, they must tax their campaign money. If they don’t want pastors to drive the best of cars then they should go to campaign on trucks. Nonsense!”.He added
“And they are saying pastors are showcasing their cars, but when they (politicians) go on a campaign, don’t they go with Land Cruisers?. And so we are fools? But not this time.” He continued.
Listen to the audio below
To tax churches or not is one of the hottest issues in Ghana today as the public continues to discourse on whether churches should pay taxes on their income or not.
This issue continues to pop up from time to time for discussion but whenever it does — no definite conclusion is made and it just slides off as it came.
This time around, it is refusing to “die a natural death” like before, probably because of renewed commitment on the part of the Akufo Addo led government to widen the tax net and increase government revenue.
Churches have over the years played very key and significant roles in the socio-economic development of this country. The Catholic Church, for instance, is arguably the second biggest development agent after government.
But of late the church seems to have slowed down or totally abandoned its developmental mandate. This mandate is not prescribed by any law — it is largely conventional. In fact, no new facilities are being built except bigger churches and state of the art mansions.
Apart from building bigger churches and cars, the church now engages in business to shore up church finances. Most of these church businesses evade taxes and it is high time the NPP government thought locating these church-based businesses and treat them just like any other business.
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Sales from Holy water, anointing oil, sticker, banner, bangle, chain, watch, face towel, handkerchief etc the government argued should be taxed because that is not the core mandate of the church.
But Prophet Badu Kobi thinks otherwise.
