The tax department on January 17 increased GST collection target claims to Rs 1.15 lakh crore over the next two months and Rs 1.25 lakh crore for March month by checking fraudulent input tax credit The decision in this regard was taken at a high-level meeting on January 17 chaired by Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, sources said.
Last month, for the remaining duration of this financial year, the government increased its GST tax collection target to Rs 1.1 lakh crore per month with Rs 1.25 lakh crore for a single month, while the direct tax target was to stay same at Rs 13.35 lakh crore after Rs 1.45 lakh crore corporate tax relief.
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All of the very senior CBIC and CBDT officials attended the meeting to formulate an action plan and make the field functions more effective in achieving the collection targets without overreaching, sources said.
According to sources, it has been discovered that GST authorities would examine the inconsistency between supply and purchase invoices, data analytics of inconsistencies in GSTR-1, GSTR-2A and GSTR-3B, failure to file returns, over-invoicing, recovery of fake or excess refunds used beyond the permissible limits, trying to patch the tax leaks, action to check fake or huge ITC claims, data analytics review of all the refund under inverted duty structure, etc.
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Sources further claimed that SMSs and emails will be sent to all such people who fraudulently or excess claimed ITC, targeted defaulters, non-filers and those who provided mismatched information in their returns or over invoice or who have been detected for tax evasion by duplicating the system through some other wrong manner via data analytics.
Taxpayers who have wrongly taken ITC can voluntarily refund the amount equal to the inadmissible credit before verification and punitive action against them is taken, they said.
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The electronic communications to such specified targeted taxpayers and fraudulent refund seekers and over-invoice users would be accompanied by visits from the GST field formations to make them comply with the law and pay the tax due in time, sources said, adding that the field formations would be required to report daily.
The Revenue Secretary would carry out weekly high-level review of income-increase measures and efforts made or actions taken against these targeted gamers, fraudulent ITC seekers and identified default taxpayers.
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Approximately 40,000 companies have been red-flagged for excess or fraudulently claiming ITC and other tax-related wrongful issues through data analytics, out of 1.2 crore GST registrants focus would be on those taxpayers identified sources said.
Field formations were directed to conclude ITC recovery without overreaching but in a defined timeframe, sources added.
Sources stressed that the allowable ITC limits were further reduced to 110% of the declaration made by the suppliers from 1 January 2020 and that taxpayers filing their return for the month of December 2019 should take this into account when filing their FORM GSTR-3B in order to avoid any punitive action by the authorities.
