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.
Source: GNA
| Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
