L&T fined Rs 30 cr in alleged 'fake GST invoice' case

26-Feb-2021 Business Today GST Department, GST, Goods And Service Tax, GST Fake Invoice, Input Tax Credit, ITC, GST Evasion 1076 Views

Engineering and construction major L&T had to deposit Rs 30 crore with the GST department after it was found to be allegedly involved in a fake invoicing case, sources in the revenue department told BusinessToday.In. In January, the premises of L&T, Zee Entertainment and some other Mumbai-based companies were raided by the I-T and GST departments after they were found availing Input Tax Credit based on alleged fake invoices.

A revenue department source hinted that some of these 'bills' are related to political funding, but he refused to give more details. Business Today. In asked for L&T's comments on the issue but the company did not respond to an email questionnaire.

The GST department has launched a crackdown against fake invoicing frauds and GST evasion since November 2020. So far, the GST department has arrested 329 persons and filed more than 3,200 cases against 9,600 fake GSTIN entities. The authorities have recovered more than Rs 1,000 crore from these fraudsters.  

Out of the 329 arrests so far, 113 were proprietors, 46 director/managing directors, 17 partners, 5 CEOs/CFOs/CMDs, 10 chartered accountants, 4 accountants and one each of company secretary, broker, and GST practitioner. Arrested persons also include fake entities operators and the end beneficiaries who connive with these fraudsters running businesses of fake invoices.

The GST authorities have been using deep data analytics, integrated data-sharing and AI & ML tools along with Business Intelligence and Fraud Analytics (BIFA) to unearth the input tax credit (ITC) utilisation frauds via fake invoicing and bogus firms. The technology has enabled the GST ecosystem and intelligence authorities to identify layer-by-layer activities of these fake entities and their networking without any overreach and pinpoint fraudsters with specific inputs to take targeted actions and further investigations against them.

According to the revenue department sources, the nationwide drive against fake GST invoice frauds have yielded record GST collections for over three months and has fetched record collections of Rs 1.15 lakh crore in December, 2020, and Rs 1.20 lakh crore in January, 2021. They expect a similar higher collection trend to continue in February as well.

Source: Business Today

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