Eight Cold Stores swiftly shuts down on noticing GRA Officials in Tema, went into hiding

Managers of eight Cold Stores in the Tayi Yard in Community 1, Tema swiftly closed their shops and went into hiding when a team from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) Tax Enforcement Unit arrived for an Invigilation exercise.

The owners of the stores fled, leaving their cars behind when the team arrived on the ongoing tax invigilation exercise.

Before, the team got to these stores, they visited a number of other shops, who infringed on the tax laws, including non-registration of VAT and non-issuance of VAT receipts.

These stores are Perez Frozen Foods, Isaac Glavi Trading Enterprise, Wanmafe Company Ltd, Jos Nartey Enterprise, and CU Nazareth Ventures.

Meanwhile, GRA has locked up and sealed the Underbridge Event Centre located at East Legon.

Mr Joseph Annan, Area Enforcement Manager of GRA in charge of Accra Central, told the Ghana News Agency that the place would be locked up until it met its obligations.

He said some of the businesses were registered but were doing selective issuance of VAT, while others were not registered at all.

He said he expected the Event Centre to do the VAT registration for the place to be opened up for the public, adding that the registration process was not a difficult one.

On the stores that were closed, the Enforcement Manager said since the team was always on the field, they will catch with them.

He said, “so if you run today, then you must run forever.”

Mr Annan said it had been wonderful ever since the operation began, adding that all the places visited had zoomed into full compliance and they were putting together some assessments and had so far got GH200,000.

He encouraged the public to volunteer information on tax infractions to the Authority, adding that information that leads to some good recovery will benefit from the reward scheme.

The GRA expects that all suppliers of taxable items, goods or services, issue VAT invoice as required by law and in the same vein, the customer is required by law to obtain invoice if such transactions attract VAT.

GNA