VAT Service educates shop owners on tax

Tema, July 24, GNA - The Tema Metropolitan Office of the Value

Added Tax (VAT) Service, on Thursday sensitized shop owners in Tema on


its operations and urged traders to register with the service. Mr Akwasi Amofa, Principal Revenue Officer of VAT at Tema said


the charging and payment of VAT generate more revenue for the country which


facilitates development. Mr Amofa said revenue from the tax was used to support the


implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Ghana

Education Trust Fund (GETFund). He stated that as a public and civic responsibility, traders whose


annual turnover exceeded GH¢5,000 must register and charge VAT while


customers must also demand their VAT invoices. The Principal Revenue Officer added that in order to make it easy


for traders to calculate the VAT returns, wholesalers were to charge 15 percent


while retailers charged three percent of the tax on goods and services. He further advised the shop owners to keep records of their

imports; purchases and sales to enable them provide correct information on the


VAT returns forms. The return forms, he said, must be presented to the nearest VAT


office at the end of every month, cautioning that failure to do so after an


additional one month grace period attracted GH¢100 penalty. Mr Amofa gave the assurance that the metropolitan office was


considering opening sub offices in some communities including Ashaiman to

ease the stress that traders from afar go through. Mr Charles Obeng Bawuah, Chairman of the Tema Shop owners


Association appealed to the government to reduce the numerous tax obligations


by shop owners, which according to him affected the prices of their goods. Mr Bawuah noted that due to the high taxation they pay, shop


owners had no option than to increase the prices of goods leading to low sales


as consumers prefer buying from the hawkers who have lower or no tax

obligations. He also appealed to financial institutions to reduce their interest rate


to enable traders borrow and expand their business to help the country to


generate more revenue.