Mumbai's CGST busts fake ITC racket

Mumbai's CGST busts fake ITC racket

The Goods and Services Tax evasion was worth several crores

The Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Commissionerate, Navi Mumbai, has busted a fake Input Tax Credit (ITC) racket. It has also arrested the proprietor of Shree Ram Enterprise.

The firm was engaged in availing, utilizing and passing on a fraudulent ITC on the bogus invoices of around Rs.100 crores, thereby defrauding the government exchequer.

A team of officers of the Anti-Evasion department of CGST conducted an inquiry against the firm that the proprietor maintained was involved in the trade of a scrap of ferrous and other metals. However, the investigation revealed that the taxpayer had availed and passed on fraudulent ITC from various non-existing/bogus firms.

The accused was, therefore, arrested under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 for committing offences under the Act.

The case is a part of the anti-evasion drive launched by CGST, Mumbai Zone, against the fraudsters and tax evaders who are creating unhealthy competition for compliant taxpayers and defrauding the government exchequer.

As a part of the drive, Navi Mumbai Commissionerate has detected tax evasion of about Rs.500 crores and recovered Rs.20 crores. It has recently arrested 13 persons in this connection.

The CGST department is using data analysis tools to identify tax evaders. It has managed to book over 625 tax evasion cases, detected tax evasion of Rs.5500 crores, recovered Rs.630 crores and arrested more than 50 persons in the last few months.