Over 1470 GST evasion cases have been registered by the tax department in Gujarat wherein the department recovered around Rs 360 crore.
According to a report in FE, a senior official in the state GST department said that the authorities had also arrested 14 businessmen for tax evasion. The biggest case of evasion was registered at Gondal town in Rajkot district after the authorities unearthed a fake billing racket of nearly Rs 470 crore. In connection with the case, three persons were arrested, he said.
In another case, the officials arrested five persons from Ahmedabad, two each from Unjha in north Gujarat and Bhavnagar in Saurashtra region as well as one person each from Vadodara and Deesa, respectively.
The traders bought fake invoices to claim the input tax credit on the supply which in reality never happened.
The input tax credit is an option in the GST which allows the taxpayers to claim credit for the taxes paid on inputs, he added.
Of these 14 accused, charge sheets were filed against nine persons and legal proceedings are on against the remaining five persons. In order to curb GST theft, mobile squads have been formed by the state GST department.
The GST regime rolled out on 1st July 2017 introduced several tax evasion measures such as E-way bill, TDS, TCS provisions etc.
In order to curb evasion, the department has started verifying the mismatches in income tax and service tax returns.
