Another fake firm duped govt of ~31 cr

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 28

Yet another non-existent firm has come to light in Haryana that has hoodwinked the state exchequer of Rs 31.81 crore by claiming input tax credits through “bogus sale” of Rs 378.28 crore without paying any GST, taking the total losses discovered to Rs 105.01 crore in four days.

The firm, Preeti Industries, Gurugram, which is registered for tax-free item animal feed, “sold” commodities like cotton, hands-free mobiles, laptops, sports shoes, batteries, cement, door curtains, ladies jackets, popular veneers, aluminium scrap and TMT bars with varying GST tag of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.

The fact that the Gurugram firm continued “selling” commodities without paying even a paisa of GST from May to November 2018 pointed towards the possibility of complicity of some officials of the Excise and Taxation Department as returns under GST were to be filed every month.

It was virtually impossible for any firm to go unnoticed without paying tax after such huge amount of sales. This time again, the taxation authorities in Fatehabad stumbled upon this firm while probing bogus purchases and sales of four firms registered there.

Earlier, the authorities had discovered the Meham-based firm Priya Industries, registered for musical instruments, which conned the government of Rs 40.61 crore with “bogus sale” of cotton worth Rs 426.09 crore and Mahendragarh-based Poonam Industries, registered for selling wheat and durum wheat, that “sold” cotton worth Rs 263.47 crore and evaded GST worth 32.59 crore.

Together, the three firms “sold” goods worth Rs 1,067.84 crore and without paying even a penny as GST, managed to claim input credit (refund) of Rs 105.01 crore. The Gurugram firm raised 2,957 invoices to 19 firms, of which owners of 11 firms had mentioned their addresses in Sirsa, a fact which pointed towards the complicity of some traders there in the scam.

Sirsa had earned notoriety as 22 FIRs were registered by the Excise and Taxation Department there in connection with the VAT scam running into hundreds of crores. The Gujarat Police had registered 30 FIRs in Ahmedabad, in which complicity of firms registered in Sirsa in bogus VAT refunds was found.

However, none of these cases had been cracked so far because the addresses mentioned in the records of the authorities were found to be fake. Sources said the taxation authorities were supposed to physically verify the addresses of traders, but in all these cases, the addresses were found to be fake and the owners non-existent.

VK Shastri, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Fatehabad, said the probe was still going on and the discovery of more such bogus firms could not be ruled out. “We have brought the details to the notice of our seniors in the department for further action,” he said.