Internal Revenue chases tax defaulters

An exercise by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to check tax defaulters in various parts of Accra on Tuesday rather concentrated on some small shops and left the bigger ones off the hook.

The situation attracted a lot of murmurs from the public who wondered at that style of “selected justice.” To prevent their shops from being locked, some owners of the small shops rushed to pay a minimum of ?500,000 to the officials of IRS. However, the IRS managed to lock up Royal York Hotel which owed ?12,628,250 and two other big stores which owed the state a total of ?66.6m.

The biggest defaulters, St John’s Preparatory and JSS, which owed about ?312m was spared by the officials with the explanation that, because the students were in school, the offices could not be closed.

Earlier, the headmaster of the school ‘blasted’ the IRS officials for bringing pressmen and a TV camera to her office without permission. The officials got cold feet at the bashing and left the office very repentant and agreed to meet the headmistress at their Achimota office the next day.

Some confused IRS officials forgot to take with them, the list of defaulters and so, had to move from one small shop to another, rather negotiating with perceived defaulters instead of their original intention of closing down shops of proven defaulters.

Upon pressure from the press, an IRS official was sent to the office to fetch the list. The exercise is expected to be held throughout the country with Hohoe as the next place to be visited on 20 November.