naian government.  Ghana has about sixty-three (63) private universities across the country currently.

Until recently, private universities in Ghana were exempted from the payment of corporate tax in accordance with Section 10 (1d) of the Internal Revenue Act.

Section 10 (1d) of the Act exempts “income accruing to or derived by an exempt organisation other than income from business”. Section 94 of Act 592 defined exempt organisations as “religious, charitable or educational institution of a public character”.

The Internal Revenue Act (Act 592) was amended by Act 859 in May, this year, with the aim of bringing private universities into the tax net. The government asserts that many private universities are run their institutions as purely business entities and others have allied business interests that make them rake in profits but are not taxed.

Ghana has introduced a raft of new taxes on different sectors from education, mobile telecoms, agriculture and financial institutions with the aim of raising revenue to close a budget deficit gap of 12percent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The state projects to reduce the budget deficit to 9 percent by the end of this year.

But the new taxes, according to the Conference of Heads of Private Universities in Ghana (CHPUG), was detrimental to the interest of university education and Ghana’s development planning.

There are 63 private colleges and universities, admitting 26 percent of students who enter universities every year. In the 2011/2012 academic year, the private universities had an enrolment of 50,000 students.

The CHPUG  added that the withdrawal might also lead to a desperate search for alternative revenue sources by private universities, which could adversely affect tuition fees.