Drive to detect fake GSTINs begins today

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Amritsar, May 15

With the Central and state tax administrations starting a door-to-door drive against fake and suspicious GSTIN registrations from May 16, local GST dealers are reluctantly preparing documents to escape last-time frenzy.

During the two-month-long drive, officials of the CBIC may visit business premises to fathom the ground situation. The purpose is to detect suspicious registrations and suspend their GST numbers.

Taxation experts are advising GST dealers to display the names of the business with GST numbers at the premises, keep a soft and hard copies of the last three filed returns, sales and purchase verification. During the drive if it is detected that the GST registration was taken on the forged documents like electricity bill, property receipts, rent agreements, with dummy mobile numbers linked with Aadhaar then it would invite strict action.

It is feared that fake GSTINs pass on Input Tax Credit fraudulently to recipients without the actual supply of goods and services to prevent revenue loss to the government.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM) voiced concern against the drive and feared that it would lead to exploitation of the dealers. Sunil Mehra, an office-bearer, said when the verification was done before allotting GST number, repeating the exercise defies the logic. Traders also fear exploitation at the hands of officials. Traders are afraid that this campaign of the department will only promote corruption and the companies which are continuously filing their GST returns every month and have completed the verification process at the time of getting GST numbers.

Tarsem Kataria urged the government to cancel this verification process and help the traders to progress in business. He said documents like PAN card, GST certificate, Aadhaar card, etc, to be verified were already available with the department. He said the verification process was in contravention to the government’s Ease of Doing Business initiative. He added that traders were already suffering from complex GST compliance.