Punjab News: Punjab Finance, Planning, Excise, and Taxation Minister Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema announced the exposure of a colossal fake billing scam, giving out staggering figures and the number of implicated firms. Through a press conference at Punjab Bhawan, Cheema spoke about investigations conducted by the enforcement wing of the state’s tax department and exposed fraudulent activities regarding gold and iron transactions amounting to thousands of crores of rupees.
Gold and Iron Sectors at the Center of Fraud
According to Cheema, two major sectors are involved in this scam: gold and iron. Investigation revealed that two gold-dealing companies had raised fake bills of as much as Rs 860 crore. Similarly, probe found that 303 iron-dealing companies had raised fake bills of Rs 4044 crore. Another shocking element of this scam came to fore when it was found that 68 companies had got registered with fictitious identities and did fake billing of Rs 533 crore.
Cheema also provided specific examples of such fraudulent activities during the press conference. Notably, another case related to a gold-dealing firm located in Amritsar, which was found to issue fake bills amounting to Rs 336 crore. The registration of the two firms from where this Amritsar-based firm had procured gold was canceled, and all gold transactions with it were stopped. Similarly, a firm based in Ludhiana was involved in a Rs 424 crore fraud pertaining to fake transactions of gold. As in the case of Amritsar, here too, the registration of two firms related to the Ludhiana firm was revoked.
Expansive Iron Sector Fraud
The scam is not restricted to gold bills alone. The Finance Minister said that the total fraudulent billing by the 303 iron-dealing firms worked out to Rs 4044 crore. These include 11 companies registered in Punjab, 86 in other states, and 206 registered with the Central Government. The central and state authorities have detected Rs 89.7 crore in Input Tax Credit ITC dues pertaining to 217 of these firms. The total claimed fake ITC amounts to Rs 707 crore. The Punjab tax department has already canceled or suspended the registrations of the 11 Punjab-based firms; the particulars of the remaining 206 firms have been forwarded to central authorities for further action.
Punjab Government’s Anti-Tax Evasion Measures
He further outlined steps that the Punjab Government is taking to check on the growing menace of tax evasion. This includes linking GST registrations with Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in order to weed out fraudulent registrations. Further, setting up TIU and SIPU also points to the commitment of the state government to address the issue of tax frauds with due seriousness.
He also brought out the mega achievement whereby under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, the Punjab Government has achieved over a 13 per cent growth rate in GST collections, which is an improvement considering the earlier administration had a growth rate of 6 per cent.
Others present there were Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Financial Commissioner, Tax, Vikas Pratap; Excise and Tax Commissioner Varun Roozaam; Joint Commissioner, Tax, Jaskaran Singh Brar. They all jointly asserted that vigilance and stringent action would be carried on without any break to check and prevent tax evasion in Punjab.