In Today’s #FridayRead, highlights Compulsory Indemnity Insurance for commercial buildings under the Insurance Act 2021 (the “Act”)
The Act requires persons who construct and/or own commercial buildings to insure such buildings with a licensed insurer. The compulsory insurance for commercial buildings is classified into two main types: commercial buildings under construction and completed commercial buildings. Below is the scope of insurance coverage for each type:

1. Commercial building under construction (“CBUC”)

The required scope of the insurance coverage for CBUC is as follows:

• • • • Loss or damage caused to a person where the claim arises from negligence, breach of duty by the owner, the building contractors or their agents.
      • The legal and other costs connected with defending the claim listed above; and
      • The cost of investigating and settling such claims.

2. Completed commercial building (“CCB”)

The required scope of insurance cover for CCB is as follows:

• • • • Against the hazard of collapse, earthquake, storm and flood; and
      • Against the liability of the owner or occupier for loss or damage caused to any person for using the premises.

It is worthy to note that commercial buildings include office spaces, Banks, Shopping mall, Factories, Hospital, and any other building use for commercial activities.

Today’s #FridayRead is on the Income Tax (Amendment) No. 2 Act, 2021 (Act 1071). The Parliament of Ghana amended the Income Tax Act 2015 (Act 896) to review the rates of income tax on wages particularly the minimum wage in Ghana.
Thus, the new income tax schedule for calculating Pay As You Earn (P.A.Y.E) has been revised to capture the changes in the wage structure and comparatively reduce the burden of tax on employees.
The tax schedules below shows the tax payable on an employee’s income under the Act 896 as shown in old schedule and the Act 1071 as shown in the new schedule:

From the above, income that falls within the minimum wage is not taxable. In addition, assuming an employee earns an income of GHS 2,000.00 the tax payable on that amount would be GHS 272.68 under the old schedule and 262.66 under the new schedule.
From the foregoing, it is evident that the tax burden on the income of employees has been reduced

In today’s #FridayRead we will discuss the Ingredients of Murder.
The law on “Murder” can be found in the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29). Section 47 of Act 29 defines Murder as,

A person who intentionally causes the death of another person by an unlawful harm commits murder, unless the murder is reduced to manslaughter by reason of an extreme provocation, or any other matter of partial excuse.

This means that, for a person to convicted of murder, the person must have first of all caused the death of another person, the death of the person must have been caused by an unlawful harm and finally the infliction of the unlawful harm to cause the death of the other person should have been intentional.

Without these listed out ingredients, one cannot be successfully convicted of murder which means that, it can be reduced to manslaughter if it was done by extreme provocation or any other justifiable cause.

In today’s Friday read, we will discuss briefly what the taxable foreign income entails.
Section 103 (1) of the Income Tax Act 2015, (Act 896) states that, where the income of a person employed is derived from a source outside of the country and a source that is in the country, the income of that person derived from the source in the country shall, be calculated separately from the income of that person derived from the source outside of the country.
This means that if you are a Ghanaian living in Ghana and your source of income is derived from another country, that income will not be taxed in Ghana unless you have another income that is derived from Ghana. The essence of this provision is to prevent double taxation.

In Today’s #FridayRead we will go into the prerequisite of obtaining a license to operate courier services in Ghana. The law that governs courier services in Ghana is the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission Act, 2003 (Act 649).
The term “Courier Services” is defined in the interpretation section of Act 649, which is section 56 as “a service for the receipt and delivery of correspondence, items of value or both, such as parcels and packages, for which no postage stamp is required”. Examples of such companies in Ghana are Glovo and Jumia.
In order for a company to operate successfully in Ghana as a Courier Service company, they need to obtain a license. Section 14 of the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission Act, 2003 (Act 649) states that,

A person shall not be licensed to provide a courier service unless the person undertakes to

(a) Develop and publish with the approval of the Commission, unless the person undertakes to
(b) Follow and trace items received or collected for delivery by that person’s business undertaking;
(c) Deliver items within the acceptable delivery time set by each operator and approved by the Commission.

This means that in order to be issued a license to operate a courier service in Ghana, the Commission of Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission must approve the service based on the ability of the company to track items received or collected to their final destination within the set delivery time.
This is why there is a law enacted to govern this service to protect parties involved in the business due to the nature of the ability of items being lost, destroyed, stolen as well as protecting confidentiality