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Informist, Tuesday, Aug 20, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra today said that in the course of the current special drive to weed out fake goods and services tax registrations, officers should focus on tracking the masterminds and beneficiaries of the fake registrations so that strict action can be taken to have the necessary deterrent effect.

 

Malhotra was addressing the national conference of state and central GST officers. He also stressed the importance of maintaining a fine balance between enforcement actions and ease of doing business, the finance ministry said in a release.

 

Central and state GST officers launched a special two-month drive on Friday to weed out fake registrations to prevent revenue loss to the government. The move came after the success of the first such drive in May-Aug of 2023.

 

The current drive is being undertaken in a coordinated manner between the central and state formations. Based on certain risk parameters, close to 59,000 potential fake firms have been identified for verification and further enquiry, the ministry said. 

 

Informist reported exclusively Monday that the government was holding the second edition of the National Conference of Enforcement Chiefs of State and Central GST Formations in the national capital and would be discussing the teething issues in the special drive launched by the Centre and states.

 

At the conference, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs Chairman Sanjay Agarwal emphasised the need for enforcement agencies to stay ahead of evaders so that the sanctity of the GST system is preserved. He also advised the enforcement units to focus on real evasion rather than interpretative issues and general industry practice, the ministry said in the release.

 

Anil Kumar Gupta, principal director general of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, said the department has detected input tax credit evasion of 1.20 trln rupees from 2020 till date, according to the release. He said special emphasis was being laid on identifying and apprehending the masterminds and disrupting syndicates operating across the country, and 170 such masterminds have been apprehended so far.

 

As per the release, in the course of the day-long conference, many state GST officers highlighted the good enforcement practices that their states were following and raised issues that have come to their notice. "Various participants stressed the need for building a national register of enforcement actions so that real-time information gets disseminated to all enforcement units in Centre and state formations," the release said.

 

The conference was attended by senior officers of the Department of Revenue, CBIC, commissioners of commercial tax, GST enforcement chiefs of the states, and the chief executive officer and officers of the Goods and Services Tax Network. Other enforcement and intelligence authorities like the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Enforcement, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Financial Intelligence Unit, and Central Economic Intelligence Bureau were also represented.

 

The first enforcement conference was held on Mar 4 when the CBIC decided to expand to all states and Union territories the pilot launched last year to curtail GST evasion using technology. It was also decided at the conference that officials would meet every six months to identify new challenges to the system and exchange information and share initiatives.  End

 

Reported by Priyasmita Dutta

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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