The “hurried and unplanned” roll-out of the GST has not only led to lower tax collections, but has also allowed frauds worth more than ₹45,000 crore to take place, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra wrote in a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“I am shocked to learn about the massive fraud taking place under the GST structure,” he wrote. “The scale of this fraud has been quantified by a written response in the Rajya Sabha by the Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur, [who said] a staggering amount of ₹45,682 crore of tax fraud was detected under the GST since its roll-out.”

Mr. Mitra further said that this fraud amount was likely understated because it did not take into account the frauds done in State GST. The real figure, he added, could be more than ₹1 lakh crore.

Mr. Mitra added that he had warned the government that giving up on the concept of invoice matching would lead to widespread tax frauds.

“Indeed, the subdued and below-target tax collections under GST, since its inception, is primarily due to hurried and unplanned introduction of GST,” Mr. Mitra said.

Published On : 29-08-2019

Source : The Hindu