Accra, Aug. 23, GNA - Officials of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Service on Wednesday closed down Pan African Hotel in Nima, Accra, because it failed to pay its VAT returns of 28 million cedis. Mr Henry Bradford Sam, Assistant Revenue Officer of the Service, who conducted newsmen round some shops of defaulters namely: White Temple Agencies, dealers in Household Wares and building materials; Sacseva Enterprise, Grocery Shop and Toha Jie Limited, suppliers of electrical accessories, said the four companies together owed 72.6 million cedis hence the decision to undertake the distress action to retrieve the amount.

White Temple Agencies owed more than 21 million cedis; Sacseva owed 18 million cedis and Toha Jie Limited owed five million cedis and all of them gave cheques to defray their indebtedness.

"We are not interested in locking up your shops, but we want you to voluntarily pay your VAT returns to avoid embarrassment", Mr Gabriel Kontor-Adampah, Head of Adabraka VAT Office stated.

He urged clients to regularly declare their VAT returns and called on those, who doubted their VAT audit assessment to come to the office to clarify issues with the VAT Office to avoid confusion between them and the Service.