As a strong step against fraudsters and scammers in the country, the government has launched a drive to bring the defaulters of Goods and Services Tax fraud to task, and has begun the process of recovering defaults worth Rs 4,500 crores. According to inside sources, nearly two dozen fraudsters have been arrested in the past few days. Among them are some well-known people such as the son of a Maharashtrian politician.
This drive against those involved in defrauding the government to avail GST input credit through fake invoices was initiated after a high-level meet between top officials of the department of revenue. This meeting, held on November 7 this year, was an important one as the Directorate General of GST Intelligence took a decision to crack down on the unscrupulous elements who have cheated the government of thousands of crores of money.
The consequent crackdown on GST fraudsters is a nationwide initiative with 28 cities such as Delhi, Vadodara, Jamshedpur, Patna, Siliguri, Bhopal, Imphal and Bhubaneswar included in the list.
In the past few days, since the start of the crackdown, nearly 25 people have been arrested for GST fraud. Out of these 25 people, two are kingpins and two are professional fraudsters. As many as 350 cases have been booked against the fraudsters for producing fake invoices against 1,180 entities and lapping up Input Tax Credit through these fake invoices.
The inside details of some of the high-profile frauds of the GST scam has been accessed and it is now known that Sunil Gutte, the son of Maharashtra MLA Ratnakar Gutte, has been arrested for a GST fraud of Rs 520 crore. His business partner Vijendra Ranka has also been found equally involved in the illegal act and has accompanied Gutte to jail. The fraudster’s company Sunil Hitech Engineers was found running on funds sourced from illegal stash amassed by Input Tax Credit from fake invoices and the company has also been seized after it could not furnish the goods or receipts attached to them to validate the GST money.
Another company from Mumbai has also been booked for a GST fraud of 209 crores, but the act served as a link to a greater bank loan fraud of 2500 crores that the company had been perpetrating since quite some time ago.
The officials involved in the crackdown hint at this being only the start of a greater initiative to clean the nation of tax evaders and fraudsters. The list of fraudsters this time might be the first one, but the department of revenue is planning to trace tax frauds and money launderers across the nation in an extended crackdown over the coming few days. There could be many more tax frauds hidden in the country who are pilfering away the hard-earned money the common man is paying in taxes.
It is important to find these unscrupulous lot who have been abusing the system for years and the Department of Revenue has rightfully thrown the book at them to unearth their fortunes amassed through unfair means.
Comment here