The government has tracked down one of the reasons behind the phenomena of falling GST collections. Following a huge search operation, a massive IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax) fraud has been unearthed. The search operation conducted across 15 states at nearly 350 locations was carried out by joint teams of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DRI-DGGI) against violating exporters and suppliers. The biggest ever joint-operation by DRI-DGGI teams targeted exporters who were claiming refund of IGST fraudulently. Sources say pan-India searches were carried out at 336 different locations across the country on Wednesday. The huge swoop down covered exporters and their suppliers  in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh.

The operation by the two agencies, which work under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), was a first of its kind. It involved about 1,200 officers from both the agencies. The raids were a result of export data mining and intelligence inputs generated through coordination between various Indian agencies. The agencies acted on specific information that some traders were exporting goods out of India on payment of tax (IGST), which was paid from the Input Tax Credit (ITC) that they had availed by furnishing ineligible/fake supplies. The second level of fraud was that these entities were pocketing the IGST paid by claiming them as refund on exports. DRI-DGGI teams reached the premises of exporters and their suppliers on Wednesday morning following which searches and computing were carried out till Thursday morning.  The teams found that many of the exporters and their suppliers were either non-existent or had provided fictitious addresses.

Source:businesstoday