After a series of bogus billing scams dented the exchequer's revenues through massive tax evasion, the state and central goods and services tax departments in Gujarat have launched a drive to identify bogus GST registrations. The drive is part of a nationwide effort to curb tax evasion through fake billing.

“As part of the initiative, in the past month, the state goods and services tax department has cancelled 40 registrations which were found to be fake,” said a top source privy to the development.

“The officials have received a list from the Centre of suspicious GST registrations in Gujarat. A spot verification is being thoroughly carried out at each of these locations. Necessary measures are taken after verification. So far, 40 registrations found to be bogus have been cancelled,” said the source.

Both SGST and CGST formations are working in tandem to cleanse the taxpayer database and weed out bogus registrations. The drive aims to restore integrity to the GST system, which has been plagued by fraudulent practices following the Aadhaar-GST scam.

“Apart from govt's efforts, we also have a list of suspicious registrations based on our own data analytics and intelligence. These are also being thoroughly verified,” the source further added.

The concerned dealers are now under scrutiny, with spot verifications actively underway to assess the legitimacy of their registrations. 

The Aadhaar-GST scam, as well as other bogus billing scams, , highlighted the vulnerabilities within the registration process, where unscrupulous individuals exploited loopholes to create fake identities and evade taxes.

Source: The Times of India