West Bengal FM Amit Mitra has expressed deep concern over the cases of GST frauds and has shot off a letter to union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman calling for putting in place a robust reporting system to generate real-time tax alerts on detection of any suspicious and fraudulent transactions. “I am shocked and deeply worried to learn about the massive fraud taking place under the GST structure today,” Mitra said in his letter, citing the reply in Rajya Sabha by minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur, who estimated the amount to be Rs 45,682 crore since the rollout of the tax reform measure on July 1, 2017. “In fact, this massive fraud under GST is understated, as complete data of frauds under SGST have not been factored in. If the detected and undetected cases of tax fraud of all states under SGST are compiled, then the tax evasion figure may cross Rs 1 lakh crore,” Mitra said. He said that giving up the concept of invoice matching had led to widespread tax frauds and hawala. “You would kindly recall that I have time and again raised my concern that introducing GST without full legal and administrative preparedness and a robust IT system capable of preventing tax leakages may be a recipe for disaster.
My fear and concerns have now come true,” the West Bengal FM said. West Bengal FM Amit Mitra has expressed deep concern over the cases of GST frauds and has shot off a letter to union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman calling for putting in place a robust reporting system to generate real-time tax alerts on detection of any suspicious and fraudulent transactions. “I am shocked and deeply worried to learn about the massive fraud taking place under the GST structure today,” Mitra said in his letter, citing the reply in Rajya Sabha by minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur, who estimated the amount to be Rs 45,682 crore since the rollout of the tax reform measure on July 1, 2017. “In fact, this massive fraud under GST is understated, as complete data of frauds under SGST have not been factored in. If the detected and undetected cases of tax fraud of all states under SGST are compiled, then the tax evasion figure may cross Rs 1 lakh crore,” Mitra said. He said that giving up the concept of invoice matching had led to widespread tax frauds and hawala. “You would kindly recall that I have time and again raised my concern that introducing GST without full legal and administrative preparedness and a robust IT system capable of preventing tax leakages may be a recipe for disaster. My fear and concerns have now come true,” the West Bengal FM said.