The office of insurance firm, International Energy Insurance has been shut down by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the police over unpaid taxes.
[contextly_sidebar id=”GwdPTJ91ZZmjm2LXdaYIr0bUdfrDQU3Y”]According to the GRA International Energy Insurance owes the state about 80, 000 cedis in unpaid Valued Added Tax (VAT).
Citi Business News has gathered the closure of companies by GRA over tax evasion which is rolled out periodically, this time round, may run into several months.
The authority which has been battling a decrease in its targets following an increase in tax evasion, early this week announced it had begun investigating a number of multinational companies in the country, suspected of massive evasion of tax through profit shifting.
A tax policy advisor at the Ministry of Finance, Dr. Edward Larbi Siaw who confirmed the investigations to Citi Business News early this week said,” in Ghana the multi-national put it as tax planning but if you plan your tax payment in that way, now the whole world is saying it is unacceptable, pay taxes where your big production is taking place… But there are indications that some multi-national firms are shifting their profits away from Ghana’.
Citi Business News has also learnt the authority this week visited scores of multinational companies over the matter.
Chief Revenue Officer at the GRA Gaskin Theophilus told Citi Business News the authority will only back down on its moves when companies settle their tax obligations to the state.
‘This is one of the most effective ways of collecting taxes, we don’t do it all year round but periodically and when we do you see most companies thronging to our offices to pay their taxes.
Our target is to ensure that GRA’s collection is achieved and exceeded.
We gave them prior notification in some cases the debt of some of the companies has been there since 2010’.
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By: Vivian Kai Lokko/citifmonline.com/Ghana