Some 13 agricultural companies are suing the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA )and its Commissioner-General, Ghana COCOBOD over the imposition of Valued Added Tax (VAT).
The said companies in the writ they filed, said, they had not been included in the payment of VAT for over 24 years. This, however, stands to change after the GRA in 2019, wrote to the Ghana COCOBOD to register them, for VAT purposes.
They, in their writ, describe this as an act of bad faith on the part of the authorities and see this as unreasonable, fickle and a complete disregard of their economic rights by law.
Kuapa Kooko Company limited, Federated Company, Sika Aba Buyers, CDH Commodities limited, Adikanfo Commodities and Olam Ghana limited are some of the companies involved in the legal battle.
The agricultural companies say they want a declaration that the activities of trucking and haulage of agricultural products, including cocoa, coffee and shea nuts in their raw state, form part of a chain of many procedures and processes of the supply of agricultural products in their raw state and therefore are exempted from VAT.
Again they demand an order of perpetual injunction restraining the GRA, COCOBOD from ever auditing, purporting to audit, assessing or purporting to assess the Plaintiffs for the purposes of charging the Plaintiffs to pay Value Added Tax (VAT).
In their writ, the companies want the honourable court to order the GRA and COCOBOD to fully reimburse and compensate them adequately on a full cost recovery basis for all Value Added Tax (VAT) believed to have been assessed, those actually assessed and charged and paid for by them.
