The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) on Thursday arrested some management members of three businesses in Accra for failure to issue Value Added Tax (VAT) invoices.
This is an offence under VAT Act of 2013 (Act 870), which makes it obligatory for business operators to pay tax and issue VAT invoices to prospective buyers, and thereafter, make statutory payments to the GRA.
The businesses are Champions Dishes in Adabraka, Grace has Found Us Depot and Celeb’y Non-Alcoholic and Alcohol Drinks shop, all located at Dansoman.
Among the team were officers from the Customs Division and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Assessment
The Head of Enforcement at the Accra Central Area of the GRA, Joseph Annan, said the authority would do a preemptive assessment of the businesses and recommend a full audit to be conducted and make sure every amount was paid.
Currently, he said the authority was doing nationwide test purchasing to detect all tax defaulters.
“These places that we visited are places that we had already sent our officers to purchase from them and all of them did not issue the VAT invoice and it is an offence under our VAT Act 2013 (Act 870).
“We are handing them over to the police for further investigations but for us as tax administrators, we will assess them and apply all the penalties and the interest that are applicable,” Mr Annan said.
