Officials of three China Mall outlets have been arrested by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) over suspected tax evasion. The outlets are at Ashaiman, Weija and Nsawam.
The arrests followed intelligence-led investigations and mystery shopping exercises which revealed that some sales transactions were not captured on the Authority’s approved Electronic VAT (E-VAT) system.
The GRA said the outlets were suspected of using unauthorised invoicing platforms to divert sales.
Speaking to the media after the operation, Head of GRA’s Revenue Protection Unit, Wisdom Kofi Xetor, said investigations were underway to establish the extent of possible tax evasion.
He said the Authority is pushing for prosecution and prison sentences of up to five years where deliberate breaches are established.
“We have several China Mall outlets across the country. We visited the one in Ashaiman and conducted a mystery shopping exercise. We made purchases and went through the transactions.
After that, we verified whether the transactions had been captured on our system, and we discovered that some of them had not been reflected.
“This means those transactions had been diverted. Even the invoices issued did not conform to our approved invoicing system. Ashaiman, Weija and Nsawam are the three areas we visited today,” he said.
