Traders in and around Kumasi who have registered with the Value Added Tax Service, VAT and have not submitted returns and made payments since the beginning of the year will have their business premises sealed off. Mr Abeiku Cudjoe the Regional Head has threatened.

According to him, the business environment has seen some challenging times. He said quite a number of traders do not voluntarily submit returns as required by the law in spite of the effort being put in place to reduce non compliance.

‘Officers pursue traders some comply others are simply being recalcitrant’, he stressed.

VAT Service in Ashanti could not meet the target set for their revenue collection. The Service was down by 14% in collection in spite of its 25% growth by way of roping more traders into the tax net.

Mr Cudjoe told B&FT in an interview that last year was very challenging and the situation had not changed. The Service’s operational performance for the first quarter of the year is still down by 12% but growth is about 15% against same period last year.

He has therefore thrown a word of advice to the tax paying public to voluntarily honour their tax obligation to reap the benefits that are associated with it and to avoid litigations and subsequent embarrassment.

The Regional Head sees this year as more challenging than last year since target has been increased approximately 60%. ‘We are working extra hard to increase the compliance rate so that we can achieve this challenging target’

He further called on consumers to demand VAT invoice on their daily purchases as well as traders submitting their tax returns and paying their taxes for national development.

‘Traders should remember that we are partners; we sink together or we survive together’, he concluded.