GRA closes down restaurants, night clubs for tax defaults

quist

December 6, 2015 9:27 AM

"We want to issue a note of caution to all tax payers. It doesn't mean it is only tax payers who operate in the night.- Theophilus Gaskine

The Ghana Revenue Authority has embarked on yet another exercise to clamp down on what they describe as recalcitrant companies with various forms of tax offences.

The GRA's Special Revenue Mobilisation task force took the opportunity to send a strong messages to all businesses to redeem their tax obligations or risk shut- down and prosecution.

The Authority has inaugurated a Special Revenue Mobilisation task force, which has since August this year collected more than 107 million Ghana cedis worth of tax returns.

The task force Friday, clamped down on a number of business entities, restaurants and night clubs in Accra.

A man who tried resisting the task force when they visited the Rhythmz night club in Abeka Lapaz, a suburb of Accra, was arrested.

Chief Revenue officer of the VRA Theophilus Gaskine cautioned business men to pay their taxes promptly.

"We want to issue a note of caution to all tax payers. It doesn't mean it is only tax payers who operate in the night.

"Even tax payers who operate in the day must take this note of caution that GRA is now well poised to ensure that the tax system is sanitized. We want to ensure fairness, equity, transparency in tax activity and the overall tax justice.

"This must be well served so that all tax payers who operate both day and night will know there is equity in the tax system and they will gladly like to discharge their tax obligations accordingly," he said.

The Special Mobilisation Task Force was able to retrieve about GHC92.03 million from 1,627 delinquent taxpayers in four regions of Ghana for the third quarter of 2015.

According to a B&FT news report GHC4.9 million was disclosed to have been collected in the Ashanti Region alone from organisations and businesses that have failed to honour their tax obligations over the last 12 months.

The eight monitoring Taskforce teams whose work took effect from 3rd August 2015 and is expected to end on December 31, 2015.

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