Vodafone’s subsidiary and operator of the mobile telecommunications company in the country – the National Communications Backbone Company (NCBC) has cleared 30% of its tax arrears owed to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
The development follows an earlier audit that was conducted on Vodafone Ghana. The report from the audit exercise had demanded that the company pay a specified minimum percentage of its debt to the GRA in accordance with the country’s tax law.
Speaking to some members of the media who asked for a confirmation on the development, Head of the Task force Division at the Ghana Revenue Authority – Henry Bradford Sam said: “The National Communications Backbone Company raised issues concerning the tax audit that was conducted and in conformity with the tax law, they were required to pay 30% of the liability. Per our calculation, the thirty percent by amounts to about 9 million Ghana cedis. They have honored the 30%â€.
In an earlier hint, Prime Business learnt that NCBC or Vodafone Ghana was indebted to the nation’s tax authority to tune over Ghc 9 million Cedis.
The magnitude of this debt had in June this year, forced the GRA to issue a distress order to the company: threatening to liquidate Vodafone Ghana’s assets within two weeks (14 days) if a stipulated percentage of the tax arrears was not cleared.
Moving forward in the effort to recover the tax debt from NCBC, Mr. Bradford noted that the next action will be to ascertain exactly how much the company owes the GRA.
In his own words, “we have moved to the next phase which is to reconcile with them the issue concerning the capital allowance and withholding taxes that occasion the liability. When the review is done, we will then have to inform them of our tax decision. The amount may go up or it may come down or even remain the same, but not until we are able to consider all our issues during the reviewâ€.