Nowadays, the GST Department is vigilant & detecting a huge number of fake GST invoice transactions & the persons found involved in these transactions will have to face the music & would be strictly dealt with said GST & Custom Expert from Mumbai Adv. Sanjay Dwivedi while addressing a largely attended Webinar on Frauds & Fake GST invoices organised by COSIA Vidarbha. He further said that there are various types of GST transactions which tantamounts to Fraud viz Supply of goods or service without Invoice, Invoice without a supply of goods, A raises an invoice to B, B to C , C to D and so on, but the goods do not move & purpose seems to increase the turnover, advance issue of invoice & in circular transaction original supplier vanishes. He further added that the officers have wide powers to detect frauds and also to recover the defaulted tax with a heavy penalty.
Powers to detect fraud include searching the premises, stock registers, gate entry, physical stock verification, and the other party’s records without notice or search warrants. The Department can make recovery through seizure & attachments of properties (movable and immovable both), business premises, bank accounts, lockers, outstandings from debtors, and personal belongings of owners/directors. They will have the first charge on all the property of business houses as well as proprietor or directors.
Heavy Penalty can be levied upto 200% of tax amount or in certain cases upto 50% of the value of goods in certain cases and/or Imprisonmentupto 5 years if the tax liability is 5 crores or more, upto 2 yrs for tax liability between 2 to 5 crores and 1 yr if the tax liability is more than 1cr but less than 2cr. The offences are registered under a non-available warrant. Hence, GST stakeholders must be very careful & diligent in carrying out the GST transactions & issue invoices, said Adv Dwivedi.
He also discussed various issues like zero rated supply, avoidable issues under GST, categories of supply, GST credit notes etc. At the outset Mayank Shukla, Chairman COSIA, Vidarbha made the introductory remarks & briefed the delegates about the various initiatives being taken by COSIA for the benefit of the industry, specially for MSME. He acknowledged the support of all for their unstinted cooperation in making COSIA vibrant in the region.
CA Julfesh Shah ,Vice-Chairman, COSIA moderated the session & said that the issue of fake GST invoice is increasing day by day and frauds that are being detected can lead to stringent punishment including cancellation of GST registration. Innocence is not in any way an excuse for such fraudulent transactions. Core Committe member Pranav Ambaselkar introduced the speaker & conducted the Q & A session.
Prominently present in the webinar were Madhusudan Roongta, President Chandrapur MIDC Association, Sandip Parikh, Vice-President COSIA, Ninad Jayant, General Secretary, COSIA, Nitin Khara, CMD Confidence Group, Sudarshan Shende, CMD, Vithoba Group, Sahaj Patel, Director, JDS Group, CA Sanjay.M.Agrawal, Secretary, ICAI, Nagpur, CA Kailash Jogani, CA Ritesh Mehta, CA Sachin Jajodia & a large number of entrepreneurs, industrialists & professionals.
