Uncovering the badge of frauds, Revenue Dept identifies 931 cases of illegal GST refund claims through data analytics

New Delhi, January 14: The Department of Revenue has identified 931 cases of fraudulent Goods and Services Tax refund claims through Data Analytics. The Department has tasked the GST Data Analytics Wing to scrutinize all the pending refund claims filed all over the country in the past.

 

 

Refunds of over 28 thousand crore rupees have been filed by over 27 thousand taxpayers so far in the current year. Such identified taxpayers who have purchased goods from tax evading non-filers would face verification and scrutiny. It is being weekly reviewed and monitored by the Revenue Secretary Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey.

 

Department has booked 6,641 cases involving 7,164 entities till November last year and have recovered around 1,057 crore rupees. The maximum number of GST frauds cases has been booked in Kolkata zone followed by Delhi and Jaipur.

 

GST investigators also found an ongoing parallel investigation in Uttarakhand to be connected and took swift action in preventing refund claims of Rs 27.5 crore. Through meticulous cyber-planning, fraudsters had created over Rs 600 crore of 'fake credit', which they would have continued to encash had it not been busted. The main accused in this case was arrested in December and continues to be on judicial remand.

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It was also through data analytics that recently, GST formations have identified a few exports with 'star' status that were fraudulently availing IGST refund and were untraceable at their registered addresses. In these cases, an exporter with over Rs 50 crore of exports of readymade garments has taken refund of Rs 3.90 crore, while the entity's total GST payment in cash was merely Rs 1,650.