New Delhi: The Department of Revenue has identified 931 cases of fraudulent GST refund claims through data analytics and has now tasked the data analytics wing to scrutinise all past and pending refund claims filed all over the country for inverted duty structure, sources said Monday.
Refunds of over Rs 28,000 crore are said to have been filed by over 27,000 taxpayers so far on account of inverted duty structure in the current financial year.
The sources said such identified taxpayers who have purchased goods from tax-evading non-filers would face verification and scrutiny as necessary. The entire operation is being weekly reviewed and monitored by Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey.
The sources said that to curb input tax credit (ITC) frauds, data analytics is to be done on all refunds since 2017, keeping an eye on the modus operandi of unscrupulous refund claimants or fly-by-night or shell business entities.
GST formations have booked 6,641 cases involving 7,164 entities till November last year and have so far recovered around Rs 1,057 crore.
The highest number of such fraud cases has been booked in Kolkata zone, followed by Delhi, Jaipur and Panchkula (Haryana), the sources said. They added that a recently detected fraud by central tax authorities in Delhi, involving GST refund for inverted duty structure, was deliberated at the 2nd National Conference on GST last week.
The sources also said investigators in Delhi have busted through data analytics a significant fraud case, where fraudsters created a network of over 500 entities comprising fake billers, intermediary dealers, distributors and bogus manufacturers of hawai chappals for availing and encashing fake ITC credits.
The bogus ‘manufacturers’ created in Uttarakhand were making supplies to other fictitious entities and retailers in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
PTI