New Delhi, February 10: During a recent Lok Sabha session, Minister of State For Finance Anurag Thakur mentioned that the total number of entities against whom GST refund frauds have been detected currently stand at 637.
On the other hand, the amount of money involved in the frauds claim is Rs 1926.10 crore. Thakur also added that the action has been taken against these frauds and there is a recovery of around Rs 238.97 crores.
In relation to these kinds of committed fraud 35 people have been arrested so far. He said that fraud GST refund claims have been detected by CGST from July 1, 2017, to January 31, 2020.
While replying to another question about the GST tax collection Thakur in a written reply to the Parliament said, “The gross Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection of September 2019 was the lowest since Feb 2018 when the collection was Rs 85,962 crore.”
Thakur also said that Budget Estimate of GST revenue collection for FY 2019-2020 is Rs 6,63,343 while the net actual tax collection was of Rs 4,44,009 crore till December 2019.
However, while answering the question about the dip in tax collection Thakur said, “The GST collection in any particular month depends upon the total taxable value of goods or services or both supplied in that month. However, it can be seen that the GST collections have been more than Rs. 1 lakh crore for the last three months and the collection in January 2020 has been the second-highest since implementation of GST.”
In a reply, he also provided actual data pertaining to GST collection for every month. In January, the collection stood at Rs 1,10,818 crore while in January 2019 the amount stood at Rs 1,02,503. According to the data it’s clear that, the GST collection fairly improved every month this year except September and October, when it fell sharply in comparison to the same month last year. The GST collection in September 2020 was at Rs 91916 crore while the collection in September last year was at Rs 94442 crore.
Throwing light on the steps taken by the government to boost GST tax collection Thakur said that in order to achieve the target set for this financial year there are quite a few action points. These include mandatory e-filing and e-payment of taxes and penalty for delayed payment.
Apart from these, other steps include extensive use of third party sources such as State VAT Department, Income Tax, for compliance verification, regular enforcement and compliance verification of tax returns, taxpayer education and media campaign.
