In a significant move, the group of ministers (GoM) on improvement in Improving GST Compliance headed by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday has taken a slew of recommendations to curb GST evasion and remove anomalies in its collection. The group has recommended effective use of the biometric system to prevent GST evasion, workplace inspection for verification of professionals, direct inspection of financial transactions of professionals based on information available on the tax collection system, direct inspection to curb the bogus registration, registration of electricity consumer number to be mandatory at the time of GSTN registration, certification of taxpayers’ bank accounts by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and establishment of feedback mechanism in order to detect suspicious transactions.
Members of the group comprising finance ministers of various states were unanimous in recommending that strong machinery for checks and balances should be put in place to avoid tax evasion and lapses. Pawar instructed the concerned officials to ensure that the taxpayers would not be harassed or inconvenienced during the tax collection.
The GoM will submit its report to the GST Council.
‘’The GST registration of traders should be thoroughly scrutinized, the registration of bogus traders, who do not comply with the rules, should be cancelled immediately, the process of filing returns should be improved, measures should be taken to regularize ITC chains as well as check false bills,’’ said Pawar in his remarks at the meeting. He also made a strong case for meeting the development of an effective mechanism for accurate analysis of information in the GST system.
Moreover, the GoM also suggested an online system should be made available to the traders to rectify the errors in filing returns, implementation of sequential filing system, public disclosure of information of unregistered bogus traders and provision of information on transactions through Point of Sale (POS) by banks.
Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Dr Palnivel Thiaga Rajan, Finance Minister of Assam Mrs Ajanta Niyog also spoke at the meeting.
The GoM’s meeting came days after the Directorate General of GST Intelligence’s (DGGI) in January revealed the detection of evasion of GST, which also includes Central Excise and Service taxes prior to 2017, to the tune of Rs 93,375 crore.
