Police charge 2 for fraud over GH¢42

Police have charged the manager and a salesgirl of a retail shop in Accra for allegedly altering a Value Added Tax (VAT) invoice to evade tax amounting to GH¢42.15 due the state.

Chen Yen Shan, the manager of the Zongo Lane sales point of the AEC Trading and Manufacturing Centre, and Leticia Fullah, the salesgirl, were said to have written a different amount on a VAT invoice duplicate as compared to the amount written on the original invoice.

They are jointly facing two counts of conspiracy to commit crime and authoring forged document, while Chen has been separately charged with making false or misleading statement and evasion of tax payment.

The two are expected to be arraigned before the Kaneshie District Court on Wednesday, September 18, 2019 over the charges.

Prosecution

According to the police, the complainant in the case was the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

It explained that on August 22, 2019 a task force of the GRA went to the sales point as part of a monitoring exercise in Accra, and in the course of the exercise, the team interacted with a customer who had purchased goods amounting to Gh¢1,627.

“Upon interactions with the customer, he gave out to the officers his VAT/NHIL Invoice receipt No. V19/0365300, which was used to cross check with the value on the duplicate and triplicate.

"It turned out to be different amount on the original and duplicate,” the prosecution said.

It is the case of the prosecution that Fullah admitted issuing the original receipt, but said she was instructed by Chen to place a cardboard under the receipt so that it won’t reflect on the duplicate and triplicate.

The police said Fullah further said Chen collected the booklet after the receipt had been issued.

“Chen then wrote GH¢180 into the VAT duplicate and the triplicate ostensibly to evade tax due the State,” the police added.