Lawrence Tetteh: Taxing the church is an insult

Dr Lawrence Tetteh, an author and world-renowned evangelist has said the idea of taxing churches in Ghana is an insult.

He said it is only ungodly people who are asking that churches in the country be taxed.

Dr Tetteh said “…Today very ignorant people wake up and say the church should be tax; that is an insult. From the economic point of view that is double taxation.

“Remember in the history of the Bible, we had ungodly people asked the church to be taxed. What people lose sight of is that the people you think are very rich you can count them; you live in Ghana, how many pastors use Land Cruisers? If you take the few of us [pastors] that seem to be doing well, we are not more than ten.

“The rest that you don’t see are in pain, and debt, and do not have a place to sleep. In fact, if you go to certain pastors’ homes, you will be very sad for them.”

He added: “… you cannot tax the church. The church is only being benevolent to society.”

He said the country needs to applaud the church for its effort at helping develop the nation and not demonise it [the church] because if we do that we demoralize people and undermine people’s hard-won reputation.

Dr Tetteh said but for the church in Ghana, the nation would have been an illiterate country.

“The gifts that the church receives go back into the church; school fees are being paid [from these]. If you look at Ghana, but for the church, the nation would have been as illiterate as some nations of the sub-region I don’t want to mention…we should applaud the church…”

He added: “When you tax the church what do you gain? If you want to look at it critically, it’s only anti-church people who complain that the church pays tax