WHOPPING Rs 15,000 crore Tax Evasion! BIG Action by CBIC to Weed Out Fake GST Accounts – Details
July 7, 2023
Tax Evasion: The authorities are investigating the role of entities in the chain, including some big names in the business. For instance, a leading food delivery service provider is said to have availed of manpower services from entities that were found to be bogus.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) conducted a special drive to weed out fake accounts registered with GST Network. The action revealed that nearly a quarter of the identified entities do not exist or have vanished, as per TOI report.
These entities have vanished after availing benefits of almost Rs 15,000 crore. The authorities used artificial intelligence and data analytics to identify around 69,000 suspects.
During the two-month exercise that carries on till the middle of the month has so far found out that there were 17,000 fake accounts, which cornered bogus input tax credit (ITC).
The authorities are investigating the role of entities in the chain, including some big names in the business. For instance, a leading food delivery service provider is said to have availed of manpower services from entities that were found to be bogus. Similar cases had also come to light when the exercise was undertaken earlier, as per TOI report.
Delhi has the highest success rate or the largest number of fakes detected from the list of suspect registrations, government sources told TOI.
CBIC, based on the latest crackdown, has now proposed to undertake a periodic exercise to ensure that benefits are not misused. They are also looking to tighten some of the norms, by withdrawing flexibilities that had been given to pay taxes by amending returns filed by a supplier to ease the burden due to the pandemic.
A senior official said, “There are some decisions that have already been taken by the GST Council on the issues, we will implement them. The idea is to ensure that leakages are prevented.”
The next GST Council meeting is likely to take up the matter where the details will be shared with the state finance ministers. However, officials ruled out a fresh tightening of registration norms. They argued that the idea was to make the process smooth for honest taxpayers, instead of burdening them with higher compliance.
The tax authorities identified the suspects after careful scrubbing of the database, which includes 1.4 crore GST payers, as per TOI report.
[Times Now]
