. Fined 5.5 m birr

By Meirafe Berhane

Some 337 businesspersons who were indicted by the prosecutor of the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) were convicted of violating the Value Added Tax (VAT) proclamation, by the ninth and tenth criminal benches of the Federal First Instance Court, it was learnt.

The authority charged the individuals with failure to declare their tax return on time, presenting fraudulent documentation, effecting sales without a VAT receipt, obstructing the operation of the authority, and encouraging others not to abide by the VAT proclamation, among others.

Markineh Alemayehu, the authority's prosecution team coordinator  told The Reporter  that among the individuals convicted more than 104 were sentenced from 6 months to 7 years prison and a ten thousand to 1.5 million birr fine. He added all the convicted individuals were fined a total of 5.5 million birr.

Following its re-establishment under Proclamation No. 587/2008, ERCA has embarked on a massive campaign to beef up VAT collection.

Solomon Gebreamlak, the authority's Intelligence, Investigation and Risk Management Directorate director, told The Reporter  that more than forty thousand organizations have obtained VAT registration certificates over the past 7 years.

Last year, ERCA's prosecutor was reorganized into criminal prosecution, civil cases follow-up as well as legal advisory and reform teams. These teams are operating to attain a 91 percent conviction rate for criminal cases and an overall success rate of 60 percent.

In this fiscal year, over 430 criminal cases involving 722 defendants have been instituted in relation to VAT and other offences at the head office of the authority alone, which has also instituted 161 civil suits for over 151 million birr.