GRA To Punish Companies Defaulting On VAT Payment

Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says it is determined to crack the whip on all companies defaulting on Value Added Tax (VAT) payments this year, 2023. This follows distress exercises conducted during the festive season to enforce VAT compliance as part of measures to improve revenue collection for the state.

Speaking to the media, the Accra Central Enforcement Area Manager of the GRA, Joseph Annan, explained that so far, his outlet has visited 60 companies and about 28 out of the total number have been assessed. According to him, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service is currently preparing the docket to prosecute defaulters.

At the moment, those that we visited, we have done over 60, but those that we have assessed and payments have been made were in 2017 and 2018. Those are the ones the docket is being prepared on. This year, it’s going to be much more aggressive.

Right from September till the end of December when we started, we saw some good improvements in our collection, month after month, we were achieving our monthly targets,” the Accra Central Enforcement Area Manager of the GRA indicated.

Mr. Annan entreated business owners to pay their taxes on time to avoid legal issues or any form of embarrassment in the media. “I feel it’s embarrassing to have your business being mentioned in the media that you are a tax defaulter. To avoid this and other complications with legal issues and all that, we will advise companies to do the right thing,” he urged.