The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), as part of efforts to mobilise the needed resources for the country’s development, has snooped on restaurants and entertainment centres that are not complying with the Authority’s regulations.
The GRA, in addition to its day and night enforcement exercise, arrested non-complying registered businesses charged with the mandate to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) on behalf of the Authority.
The Authority discovered the non-complying businesses through test purchasing exercises embarked upon by staff of the Authority to establish, which enterprises are defaulting in the application of the VAT Act.
In the night exercise in which The Chronicle participated in, the Authority caught one non-complying entertainment centre, The Alley Bar at Osu Leading.
Leading the operation team was the Head of Enforcement at the Accra Centre Office of the GRA, Joseph Annan, who told journalists that the Authority has a tall list of non-complying enterprises that operate at night.
While the Authority would leave no stone unturned during the day, he said the enforcement team would soon snoop on them as well, since they had been registered to VAT or an appropriate invoice that has been authorised by the Commissioner-General, but they have failed to act right.
“The places we have visited are those that are not doing the right thing, and we have just started the night. And we will be doing more nights, as against the days so that at least nobody doing day or night will go doing the wrong thing,” he stated.
He explained that even though the domestic tax division of the Ghana Revenue Authority closes at 5:00 pm, the enforcement team would alert until the last taxpayer goes to sleep to block all revenue leakages or loopholes.
“Like I said this exercise will continue until we all do the needful. So as I always advise when you are registered, please issue the VAT invoice or an appropriate invoice that has been authorised by the Commissioner-General.
“And for those who are not registered at all, they must register because definitely we will come and be knocking at your door and the penalty for none registration is much more than what you suffer for when you are registered, but you have not issued the invoice.”
Mr Annan added that businesses are mandated under Section 41 of the VAT Act to issue VAT invoices or an appropriate invoice sanctioned by the Commissioner-General and anything other than that is an offence.
He stated: “So obviously, we will look at your records of accounts and if you are using a machine, then we will try to retrieve something so that we can assess you pre-emptively and what it means is that you have to pay immediately, but obviously there would be a full audit when investigations are done.
“The CID, who is with us would investigate the case and when the investigation is done, the case would be handed over to our legal unit who will then prosecute the cases in court.”
Mr Annan added that the enforcement team would pre-empty how much a non-complying business must pay and the amount would be collected affront before a full audit is launched into its account.
Furthermore, the said business would be made to bear all liabilities that would be incurred in the process, explaining “When the full audit is done, the payment made now is considered payment in advance and it would be taken out of the liability that would be established after the full audit and the difference, the taxpayer would be asked to pay.”
He disclosed that as much as GH₵125, 000 was assessed pre-emptively from one of the non-complying organisations, which it has paid and after the full-scale audit, it would still have to pay the difference.
The Head of Enforcement described the exercise as fruitful, as most of the companies caught on the web are cooperating with the Authority’s directives.
