Managers of Shoprite, Palace, China, Sneda Mall arrested over tax non-compliance

The Managers of the China Mall, Sneda Shopping Centre, Palace Mall and Second Cup Coffee, all on the Spintex Road, as well as Shoprite at the Junction Mall in Nungua have been arrested over non-payment of taxes.

They were arrested in separate raids by a joint task force of police and officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) on Monday, January 30.

The exercise is part of moves by the GRA to boost revenue mobilisation through enforcing tax laws.

It is not immediately known how much tax the companies owe GRA.

It will be recalled that four branches of China Mall were closed down in October 2022 over non-compliance with the e-invoicing system for Value Added Tax (VAT) introduced by the GRA.

The e-invoicing system makes it possible for GRA to monitor the daily transactions of taxpayers making it impossible for them to under-invoice or avoid the payment of VAT on their sales.

The  Authority introduced the e-invoicing system for VAT collectors which started on October 1, 2022, to 600 large taxpayers that generate more than 90 percent of VAT revenue.

According to the GRA, a number of taxpayers have failed to file their returns through the authority’s certified invoicing system thus dwindling the revenue collection for the state.

They also disclosed that some companies engaged to pilot the electronic VAT system tampered with it and compromised the system.

Speaking ahead of an exercise to arrest business owners who have defaulted in the payments of their VAT, the Commissioner of the Domestic Tax Revenue Division (DTRD) of the authority Edward Appenteng Gyamerah said they will continually embark on such swoops to ensure that companies do the needful.

“Some of these taxpayers who are supposed to be hooked on to the Commissioner General’s invoicing system are not fully complying with the directive and we realized that some were issuing invoices outside the system and this is an infraction of the law,” he said.

He revealed that the arrested will be prosecuted immediately.