The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has closed a few retail stores recently, including the Palace Mall and the China Mall.

Ghanaians have divided on this practice.

People impacted, including those who work at and patronize these malls, think the shutdown is needless.

However, other Ghanaians contend that if these organizations have indeed been dodging taxes and depriving the nation of much-needed funds for development, then the closure is long overdue.

Why the GRA closed these businesses is as follows:

What many Ghanaians do not know is that the closure of branches of Palace Mall and China Mall was because they failed to enrol on a Certified Invoicing System for the administration of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Ghana following the amendment of the VAT Act 870.

According to the Deputy Commissioner, Operations-DTRD, Kwesi Eghan, the Palace Mall and China Mall are part of 50 selected tax-paying companies that are supposed to be enrolled on the Certified Invoicing System.

He indicated that the deadline for enrolment on the system was October 12, 2022, and that only 25 out of the 50 entities have complied.

Kwesi Eghan also said that the GRA hopes to enrol 600 large taxpayers into the system in its first implementation phase, which is expected to end in December 2023.

He added that by 2024, all taxpayers would have been fully integrated into the platform.

The Deputy Commissioner explained that the move is necessary to help improve Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization efforts.

“We want to improve compliance. We are more interested in collaboration than chaining businesses to pay their taxes. But we have no option at this moment than to move swiftly to ensure the right thing is done,” he said.