GRA ends debt recovery exercise in Brong-Ahafo

The Debt Management and Compliance Enforcement (DMCE) Unit of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has ended its four-day debt recovery exercise in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The exercise, jointly executed by a five-man team from the DMCE Unit of the GRA headquarters in Accra and the Sunyani Medium Taxpayer Office (MTO), covered the entire region, which is divided under four tax districts of Sunyani, Goaso, Berekum and Techiman.

Sunyani, Goaso, Berekum and Techiman, are Small Taxpayer Offices (STOs), in addition to the Sunyani MTO (regional head office of GRA).

Briefing the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani on Friday, Mr. Sekyere Baah-Nuako, Assistant Commissioner, Sunyani MTO said: “the team came with distress warrants for about 13 companies who were very recalcitrant”.

He stated that the Sunyani MTO had processed the tax defaulting companies for the team, which include Chesville Hotel Limited at Fiapre, near Sunyani, and Kofi Binyo Company Limited, a teak processing firm in Sunyani.

Mr. Baah-Nuako said whilst Chesville Hotel had not paid its accrued tax of GHc50,775.72 since last year, Kofi Binyo also had evaded tax of GHc34,000.00, adding that, both companies were closed down on Monday when the exercise began.

The rest were Michael Akuinor, a sole proprietorship business and Prince and Brother Furniture, both at Yeji, in the Pru District; Great Redeemer Enterprise at Wenchi, Lily Guest House at Mim and Manasseh Ventures at Goaso, in the Asunafo North Municipality, he added.

Mr. Baah-Nuako said the Distress Warrant for the other companies amounted to GHc60, 448, in addition to about GHc6,000.00, collected from other debtors, who were not issued with Distress Warrants.

The Sunyani MTO Head explained that a distressed company had 14 days grace period within which to redeem its debt, saying that failure to fulfill that obligation, the GRA would have recourse to auction that company’s property to defray the tax liability and other incidental cost.

Mr. Samuel Bentil, Chief Revenue Officer and leader of the team said the exercise was on-going nationwide and advised defaulting tax payers to honour their tax obligations “to avoid the tax axe falling on them”.