Action has been taken against 21 firms at Panipat allegedly involved in Goods & Service Tax (GST) detected in two days raids jointly by 15 teams from the state as well as centre on January 4 and January 5, 2019 detecting GST frauds of value worth crores of rupee yet estimated about Rs 920 crore.
Excise and Taxation department team detected frauds of value worth Rs 450 crore by 14 firms during raids on January 4 and Rs 470 crore frauds by 21 firms during raids on January 5 raising fake bills. According to Raja Ram Nain DETC raids are still going on against the firms involved in GST frauds suspected to cross Rs 3000 crore.
Police has started search for those involved in GST frauds in which Delhi and Karnal firms are also suspected involved and mastermind involved in most of the frauds have went underground.
Surprisingly, a firm sought GST registration number in the name and Pan Card of a fruit seller at Panipat sold good of value worth lakhs of rupees on fake bills recovering GST amount without his knowledge.
Out of as many as 21 firms named by the department allegedly involved in GST fraud disclosed to media persons Rs 15 crore frauds detected and portal of amount of these firms have been blocked by the government. Information also reveals that most of the fraud took place between July 2017 to March 2018 when excise and taxation department was busy in implementation of GST at initial stage and most of the fraud cases exposed during search for refund status disclosing that the amount of GST worth Rs10000 crore collected in bills was not deposited with the government.
According to an officer involved in raids, the frauds were not restricted only to Panipat but also in other towns and states including in other states Punjab, H.P, U.P, Jammu-Kashmir and Delhi and most of the firms involved in raising bills or received goods were found fake and in most of the cases there was no where about of the owners of these firms.
A recent investigation revealed that an iron and steel trader of Delhi H Persad got registered a firm at Panipat in the name of Shyam Trading Company and sold goods of value worth Rs 31 crore on the basis of fake bills. Similarly, investigation in another case revealed that a businessman of Karnal Amit Trikha got registered a firm in the name of Dev Trading Company. Manoj Kumar resident of Babarpur got registered a firm Kunal Trading Company at Panipat sold goods o value worth Rs 14 crore and failed to deposit Rs 1.25 crore GST recovered from the customers.
During raids, these firms could not be traced out and their addresses as well as bank accounts were found fake. Information by the state taxation department reveals that nearly 70 firms in the town are yet in the hit list against those investigation still going on and those involved in GST frauds will not be spared.
