New Delhi, Jul 5: As part of an ongoing two-month drive to tackle fake Goods and Services Tax Identification Numbers (GSTINs), GST authorities have cancelled more than 4,900 GST registrations and uncovered tax evasion worth over Rs 15,000 crore, according to a senior tax official on Wednesday.
Shashank Priya, a member of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), emphasized the need for policy changes to strengthen the GST registration and return filing process, citing the significant number of fake registrations detected during the drive.
During the pan-India special drive, over 69,600 GSTINs were selected for physical verification, out of which 59,178 have been verified by field officers. Of these, 16,989 GSTINs were found to be non-existent, 11,015 were suspended, and 4,972 were cancelled.
Since May 16, tax officers have detected tax evasion amounting to Rs 15,035 crore and blocked Input Tax Credit (ITC) worth Rs 1,506 crore. Additionally, around Rs 87 crore has been recovered.
Priya emphasized the need for refining risk parameters for registration verification and tightening the process to prevent such fraudulent activities.
In terms of trade facilitation, Priya announced that the monthly return form GSTR-3B would be made more trade-friendly by providing additional fields to report more granular data.
The number of registered taxpayers in GST has more than doubled to 1.40 crore since the implementation of the tax regime six years ago.
The special two-month drive to combat fake registrations under GST, initiated on May 16, is scheduled to conclude on July 15. Fake registration poses a significant challenge to the GST system, as it enables fraudsters to wrongfully avail Input Tax Credit by issuing fake invoices and defraud the exchequer.
