The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has revealed that the invigilation of Value Added Tax (VAT) at shops yielded as high as 1,700% in revenue collection for the month of September 2022.

According to the Commissioner-General, Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, 69% of the shops at which the action was taken, altered their records and paid far below the required amount for June, July and August 2022 respectively.

“We did the VAT invigilation at 53 shops. Looking at the results we had for September and comparing it with the tax filed by the shops as sales for June, July and August, revenue collected by officials from 69 percent of the shops resulted to 1,700 percent more,” he disclosed.

Speaking at the Youth Economic Forum as part of the Ghana Economic Forum organised by the Business and Financial Times, he indicated that strict sanctions will be taken against culprits.

 “There was one shop that filed GHc75,000 per month but when we did the invigilation for September, we realised over GHc3 million. These are revenues that are understated and we will ensure that everything is paid back,” he intimated.

Meanwhile, Professor Godfred Bokpin indicated that ensuring tax compliance is not a major solution to Ghana’s economic crises.

According to him, government needs to look at its expenditure, reduce the number of ministers and take advantage of the crisis by investing in value addition.

“Yes we will collect. We all need to be tax compliant but we need to look at Ghana’s expenditure, let’s take advantage of this crisis and reduce the number of ministers to about 40 or below. However, reducing cabinet will not affect growth but create space for growth enhancing spending. Meanwhile, sacking the Finance Minister alone will not do much but downsizing across all state owned enterprises,” he urged.

The Youth Economic Forum was organized by the Business and Financial Times on the theme “Building a Robust and Resilient Economy through Technology, Finance, Investment, Trade and Entrepreneurship”.