Explore Business Standard
GST Registration
Investigation into a cross-border narcotics trafficking racket has found that Myanmarese nationals "misused" GST credentials of Indians to facilitate purchase of raw material required for manufacturing drugs, the ED said. The federal probe agency had conducted its first-ever searches along the India-Myanmar border on November 27 following registration of a money laundering case into a drugs trafficking case of Mizoram. Locations across Aizawl and Champhai (along India-Myanmar border) in Mizoram, Sribhumi (Karimganj) in Assam and Ahmedabad in Gujarat were raided under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). India shares a 1,643-km-long front with Myanmar on its eastern side. Evidence gathered during the searches indicated that Indians procured Pseudoephedrine tablets and Caffeine Anhydrous on behalf of Myanmar nationals, enabling trans-border drug production and trafficking apart from money laundering, the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement issued o
The CBIC has asked central GST officers to institutionalise a mechanism for redressal of grievances relating to GST registration applications. In an instruction to principal chief commissioners of central tax, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said a monthly report on the status of grievance redressal will have to be sent to the Directorate General (DG) GST who would compile the same and put up before the board. "Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief Commissioner of CGST Zones may publicize an email address on which the applicants can raise their grievances. Wide publicity may be given to this email id," the CBIC said in the instruction. The CBIC said applicants whose application reference number (ARN) has been assigned to central jurisdiction can approach the jurisdictional zonal principal chief commissioner/chief commissioner if they have any grievance with respect to any query raised by the tax officer before granting GST registration. The applicants may send .
The GST Council in its meeting next week is likely to deliberate upon the status report on taxation of online gaming, in addition to the progress of the drive against fake Goods and Services Tax registration, sources said. The Council will also clear the notifications to give effect to the amendments in GST law, which were part of the Finance Act, 2024. The Council, which is chaired by the Union Finance Minister and comprises state counterparts, in its 54th meeting on September 9 will also discuss the report of two Group of Ministers (GoM) -- one on rate rationalisation and the other on real estate. With regard to online gaming, centre and state tax officers will present a "status report" before the GST Council. The report would include GST revenue collection from the online gaming sector before and after October 1, 2023. From October 1, 2023, entry-level bets placed on online gaming platforms and casinos were subject to 28 per cent GST. Prior to that, many online gaming companies
Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra on Tuesday stressed the importance of maintaining a fine balance between enforcement actions and ease of doing business while dealing with suspected GST evasion cases. Addressing the second edition of the National Conference of Enforcement Chiefs of State and Central GST formations, Malhotra also highlighted the need to track the masterminds and beneficiaries of fake input tax credit so that strict action is taken to have the necessary deterrence effect. The meeting comes amid the ongoing special drive to detect fake GST registration. The all-India drive began on August 16 and will continue for two months. "The Secretary stressed the importance of maintaining a fine balance between enforcement actions and ease of doing business," an official statement said. In his address, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Sanjay Agarwal emphasised the need for enforcement agencies to stay ahead of the evaders so that the sanctity of the G
Tax officers will launch a two-month long special drive against fake GST registrations on August 16, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has said. With the detection of close to 22,000 fake registrations involving suspected GST evasion of over Rs 24,000 crore in the first such drive in May, last year, the National Coordination Committee, comprising senior Centre and state tax officers, last month decided to launch a second special drive "to clean up the tax base". Under the special drive, GST Network, in coordination with Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM), CBIC, will identify suspicious/ high-risk GSTINs, based on detailed data analytics and risk parameters. Such information would be passed on to the jurisdictional tax officer for further verification. The Centre and State GST officers will then undertake a time-bound verification of the suspicious GSTINs (GST identification number). If it is found that the GSTIN is fictitious or ...
Central and state GST officers will launch a pan-India special two-month drive against fake registration beginning August 16, the CBIC said on Monday. This is the second such drive to identify fake registrations under Goods and Services Tax (GST). Fake GST registrations are usually taken to fraudulently avail and pass on input tax credit and evade GST. "The second Special All-India Drive may be launched by all Central and State Tax administrations from 16th August 2024 to 15th October 2024 to detect suspicious/ fake GSTINs and to conduct requisite verification and further remedial action to weed out these fake billers from the GST eco-system and to safeguard Government revenue," the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said in an instruction to field formations. In the first drive between May 16, 2023 to July 15, 2023, against fake registration, a total of 21,791 entities (11,392 entities pertaining to state tax jurisdiction and 10,399 entities pertaining to CBIC ...
Five states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, have shown interest in rolling out Aadhaar-based authentication for GST registration, an official said on Monday. The biometric-based authentication was discussed at the third National Co-ordination Meeting of senior Central and State GST officers earlier this month. Currently, two states, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Puducherry have launched the Aadhaar authentication of taxpayers on a pilot basis. "Around five states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, have shown interest in implementing Aadhaar-based authentication for GST registration," an official told PTI. The official further said that these states wanted to assess the cost involved, the infrastructure and manpower requirement for implementing the requirement of biometric authentication for registration. The data has been provided to them and based on the assessment, these states will have to put the proposal up before the stat
With an eye on 15-20 million non-GST registered sellers, SoftBank-backed Meesho has opened up its platform to onboard them for selling products online, the company said on Tuesday. The GST Council in July exempted small businesses making intra-state supplies through e-commerce platforms from taking GST registration if their turnover is below Rs 40 lakh in case of goods and Rs 20 lakh in case of services. The rule kicked in from October 1. "The platform has made significant technological adaptations which will enable non-GST sellers to start selling on the platform from October 1, 2023. This move will potentially unlock 15-20 million sellers historically under-penetrated states for the company," Meesho said in a statement. The company claims to have 1.4 million sellers on its platform. Meesho said it recognizes the unique characteristics of non-GST registered sellers, such as their high motivation and locally relevant selection from categories like fashion, consumer electronics and
Think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said small suppliers on e-commerce platforms should be permitted to undertake inter-state supplies without GST registration if their turnover does not exceed the threshold. The GST Council has exempted small businesses making intra-state supplies through e-commerce platforms from taking GST registration if their turnover is below Rs 40 lakh in case of goods and Rs 20 lakh in case of services. The rule will kick in from October 1. Ahead of the 50th GST Council meeting on Tuesday, GTRI has recommended that similar registration rules should be applicable for inter-state supplies done by micro and small businesses through e-commerce platforms. Giving example, GTRI Co-Founder Ajay Srivastava said that a small village artisan with less than Rs 10,000 annual turnover selling metal-ware craft through her website must enrol for GST pay tax and file regular returns despite low turnover. However, if the artisan restricts business within a ...
GST authorities have identified about 17,000 non-existent GSTINs and cancelled over 4,900 registrations in the ongoing pan-India drive against fake registration, a senior tax official said on Wednesday. Currently, there are 1.40 crore businesses registered under Goods and Services Tax, nearly double the number of businesses registered in indirect tax regime pre-GST rollout. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) member Shashank Priya said in the drive against fake registration, till July 4, over 69,600 GST Identification Numbers (GSTINs) have been selected for physical verification by field tax officers. Of this, over 59,000 GSTINs have been verified and 16,989 have been found to be non-existent. Out of the 69,600 GSTINs, over 11,000 GSTINs have been suspended and 4,972 registrations have been cancelled. This involved tax evasion of over Rs 15,000 crore, blocking of input tax credit (ITC) was Rs 1,506 crore and recovered taxes worth Rs 87 crore, Priya said at the ...
The pan-India drive against fake GST registration has created problems for e-commerce companies which maintain virtual offices in various states with minimal staff and no books of accounts. Talking to PTI, MakeMyTrip Group Vice President -Taxation Tajinder Singh said that the GST officials should enquire with the head offices with regard to virtual offices before categorising the state registration as a fake entity for non-production of books of accounts. "We maintain virtual offices in states ...in this fake registration drive the field offices have mistook these offices as fake registration, however we were only using these offices for tax payment, there was no ITC flow or fraud being committed using those registration. Because of this, lot of registration were blocked for compliance purpose and that created problems for us," Singh said. Centre and state GST authorities have on May 16 launched a two-month drive to check fake registration under Goods and Services Tax (GST). The fak
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked tax officers to strengthen the GST registration process further by using technology during a review meeting on fake registration and billing. Tax officers have identified 11,140 fake GST registration and initiated action against fraudsters in the ongoing two-month-long special drive launched on May 16. "Smt @nsitharaman instructed that the GST registration process may be further strengthened using technology to curb entry of such fake entities in GST ecosystem. The FM called for a nationwide campaign to explain the objectives of the special drive to weed out fake entities," the office of the Finance Minister said in a tweet. During the review meeting, which was also attended by Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra and CBIC Chairman Vivek Johri, Sitharaman was apprised of the methods like identity theft of people being adopted by fraudsters. "Smt @nsitharaman took note of the existing measures being undertaken by the ministry like ...
With GST evasion crossing over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23, Centre and state tax officers have initiated a two-month long special drive to identify fake GST registration and nab offenders. The GST Policy Wing had earlier this month written to Principal Chief Commissioners of Central Tax highlighting that fake/ non-genuine registrations are being used to fraudulently pass on input tax credit to unscrupulous recipients by issuing invoices without any underlying supply of goods or services or both. "This menace of fake registrations and issuance of bogus invoices for passing of fake ITC has become a serious problem, wherein fraudulent people engage in dubious and complex transactions, causing revenue loss to the government," the Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC) had said. Currently, there are 1.39 crore businesses registered under Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was implemented on July 1, 2017. The government has been using robust data analytics and artificial intelligence to
The CBIC will undertake a two-month-long special drive to detect fake GST registrations and take action to identify the masterminds/beneficiaries as it aims to weed out fake ITC claims. Fake/non-genuine registrations are being used to fraudulently pass on input tax credit (ITC) to unscrupulous recipients by issuing invoices without any underlying supply of goods or services or both. This menace of fake registrations and issuance of bogus invoices for passing fake ITC has become a serious problem, wherein fraudulent people engage in dubious and complex transactions, causing revenue loss to the government, the GST Policy wing of the CBIC said. "A Special All-India Drive may be launched by all Central and State Tax administrations during the period 16th May 2023 to 15th July 2023 to detect suspicious/fake GSTINs and to conduct requisite verification and further remedial action to weed out these fake billers from the GST eco-system and to safeguard Government revenue, the Central Board