The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has descended on Maxmart at 37 Military Barracks area and Koala at Osu and Labone in the Greater Accra region for evading taxes.

Managers of the two shopping centers were arrested accordingly.

Their offences include failure to issue electronic Value Added Tax (VAT), duplication of signatures on VAT receipts, among others.

The move by the GRA is part of measures to enforce the electronic VAT law.

GRA has for the past weeks been going after shopping centers and super markets within the city to ensure they comply with the electronic VAT.

The exercise sanctioned by the Commissioner of Domestic Tax Revenue is to boost compliance on the electronic VAT initiative.

Briefing Journalists after the exercise, Accra Area Mananager of Enforcement at the GRA, Joseph Annan advised the business community to voluntarily abide by the tax obligations to avoid such unpleasant scenes at their various premises.

“It is not in our interest to be arresting tax payers but if you push as we have no option than to apply the law. Because we are a revenue authority and it is our job to get the revenue for the state”.

He also explained the tax laws under which the offences were committed and the appropriate penalties.

“We have arrested the managers of Maxmart at 37, Maxmart at Cantonment for issuing non-electronic VAT. We also arrested the managers of Koala at Labone and Osu for duplication of signatures which indicates that only one of the VAT invoice will be captured in our system but will be used for other sales as well which cannot be taxed.”
“This is an offence under the Revenue Administration Act and the E-VAT law. So we are taking them to our head office for their statements then the Criminal Investigations Department will take over from there for further investigations” he noted.

The managers have been handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department for further investigations and prosecution.