Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jun 3: In connection with a case of duping the government and causing loss of revenue to it by creating fake goods and service tax (GST) invoices fraudulently, four persons were arrested by the directorate general of GST, city zone.

Sources said that the accused were found issuing counterfeit invoices although they were not involved with supplying of goods. This enabled them to falsely claim input tax credits. The directorate officials said that the coterie issued invoices totally Rs 2,364 crore and claimed input tax credit of Rs 385 crore by defrauding the government. During verification, the officials got indication to believe that several top infrastructure companies with operations in the city, Hubballi and Kalaburagi stood to benefit with the wrongful use of the input tax credit facility. These credits automatically brought down the tax payable by these companies under GST regime.

The officials of the directorate, relying on intelligence inputs, searched business and residential premises here and in New Delhi, after which the persons found to be prima facie involved with the fraud, were arrested. The persons now in their custody are believed to have created bogus entities and registered them under GST ACT 2017 by making use o permanent account numbers, electricity bills, bank cheques, photographs of family members, employees, friends etc. The transactions they generated were purely on paper and the bills were drawn without actually supplying anything.

Two among these persons also were found to be involved with clandestine supply of fast moving consumer goods without any invoices. At the same time, they issued invoices to certain customers without providing them with any goods or services. During the raids, RS 3.02 crore in cash and 22 bank accounts standing in the names of different persons involved with these transactions were found by the officials,.

This happens to be the second major tax fraud case after the officials had found that similar racket involving over Rs 1,000 crore fake bills issued by certain persons. The accused were arrested in November last year and fake invoices worth over Rs 1,200 crore were found. In that case, Fraudulent claim if input tax credits of Rs 200 crore approximately had been made in that case.