GST National Coordination meeting on Friday may discuss tightening noose on fake registrations

New Delhi: Central and state GST officers will meet on Friday under the chairmanship of Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra and are likely to discuss various issues like stricter registration norms to deter fake companies set up to evade taxes, sources said.

The meeting comes within days of GST collections scaling a record high of Rs 2.10 lakh crore in April on the back of strong economic momentum, increased domestic transactions and tighter audit and scrutiny.

The third National Co-ordination Meeting of senior officers of Central and State Tax administrations would, among other things, discuss further tightening of registration under Goods and Services Tax

(GST) to curb fake companies, set up only to claim an input tax credit (ITC).

The meeting is also scheduled to discuss ways to reach out to the mastermind of GST fraud by following the money trail, sources added.

To identify risky taxpayers suspected of passing or availing fake ITC, tax officers are using data analytics and artificial intelligence tools.

Besides, robust checks in the form of physical verification of premises and Aadhar authentication are in place for GST registration. This has enabled early detection of fraudulent registrations and curbed them to a great extent.

In Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry, a pilot on risk-based biometric-based Aadhaar authentication is being carried out for registration of applications.

As per the government data, between April and December 2023, about 14,600 cases of GST evasion have been registered by central tax officers.

Maximum number of such frauds was registered in Maharashtra (2,716), followed by Gujarat (2,589), Haryana (1,123) and West Bengal (1,098). Besides, GST intelligence officers have detected fake ITC cases worth Rs 18,000 crore in April-December 2023 and arrested 98 fraudsters/ masterminds.

The first National Coordination Meeting of State and Central GST officers was held on April 24, 2023. The issue of fake/ bogus registration under GST was discussed, and it was decided to launch a special pan-India drive to identify fake GSTINs.

The second meeting was held on December 14, 2023, in which best practices adopted by various states to curb evasion were shared, besides deliberation on other issues.