- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE state exchequer in the western Indian state of Gujarat lost Rs 171 crore ($23 million) in the first quarter of 2021-22 due to the evasion of the goods and services tax (GST) by wrongly claiming the input tax credit (ITC), the Times of India newspaper reported on Friday (13).
It was reported that some 99 trading entities are suspected in this evasion.
The details were revealed after the state’s GST department started investigating traders who tend to claim excess credit.
The department found during the first quarter of 2021-22 that some 99 big trading entities were involved in the practice, the report added.
An inquiry was started and further probe brought to the light the fact that nearly 80 entities did not exist at all. That included a fake billing scam.
The SGST officials are also assessing past returns filed by these entities and their transactions to understand whether and how much taxes they had evaded in the past.
The Times of India report said that in order to bring an end to this menace of availing input tax credit by using fake bills, the SGST officials have started to tighten things for all taxpayers in Gujarat.
