GST officers arrest thieves who stole ITC

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) administration, as part of its aggressive campaign against bogus invoices, last week detained three partners of a company in Bhiwandi and one person in Delhi to uncover evasions in two different cases totaling 52 crore and 78 crore, respectively.

He said that the CGST Mumbai Zone had arrested three partners of a firm on Sunday for GST evasion amounting to 78 crore, while the Delhi West Commissionerate of the CGST had arrested one person on Wednesday for defraudingly assisting at least six firms in misappropriating input tax credit (ITC) by using fake invoices and an Aadhaar identification number.

"In view of his own admission of his involvement in availment of ineligible/inadmissible ITC and substantiated by data analytics, Karan Kumar Agarwal was arrested for offences under section 132 of the CGST Act, 2017 read with section 69 of the said Act and remanded to Judicial Custody by the Ld. ACMM [Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate] Court for 14 days,” it added.

According to him, the tax authorities are heavily utilising data analytics and artificial intelligence to detect tax evasion and apprehend offenders.

According to the report, Agarwal acknowledged in his voluntary statement that he used his Aadhaar for authentication in all six of these businesses. He also acknowledged that he issued goods-less invoices in some of these businesses despite not receiving any goods, and that he sold those invoices for a commission of 3 to 4 percent of their taxable value.