The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has written to its field officers about the mismatch in claims for input tax credit worth Rs 36,192 crore filed by about 12,468 importers under the goods and services tax (GST) regime. In a missive sent two days ago, the CBEC has asked the field formations to carry out further in-depth analysis and take necessary action for the excess/less claims for input tax credit filed against the payment of Integrated
GST (IGST) and compensation cess at the time of imports by the taxpayers at customs ports during July-December last year.
Data analysis carried out by the GST authorities has revealed that an excess claim of Rs 10,249 crore for input tax credit has been filed against payment of IGST and compensation cess on imports by 6,247 taxpayers, the missive stated. These 6,247 importers availed input tax credit over Rs 10 lakh each during July-December.
There have also been instances of less claims of input tax credit amounting to Rs 25,943 crore filed by 6,221 taxpayers during July-December. These 6,221 taxpayers have short-availed input tax credit of over Rs 50 lakh each in their input tax credit claims filed in their summary GSTR-3B returns, it stated.
“The GST authorities have scrutinised data for IGST and compensation cess payment pertaining to total 1.18 lakh importers during July-December, but for now, the focus is on the high-value claims. State-wise data has been shared with the field officials who have been asked to pay due attention to the mismatch data since the amounts involved are huge,” a government official said.
Under the GST regime, importers pay IGST and compensation cess at the time of imports at various customs ports. They are then eligible to avail the input tax credit of the same under GST. “The input tax credit is being availed by the registered taxpayers on self-assessment basis while filing their return in Form GSTR-3B but no matching of the amount paid at customs port vis-à-vis the amount of input tax credit availed in their GSTR-3B return is being undertaken at the present,” the missive said.
In its 26th meeting held on March 10, the GST Council was apprised of the fact that CBEC and GSTN have started detailed data analytics across a number of data sets available with them, a Finance Ministry release had said. “The outcome of preliminary data analysis has revealed interesting insights: It has emerged that there is variance between the amount of IGST and compensation cess paid by importers at customs ports and input tax credit of the same claimed in GSTR-3B. There are major data gaps between self-declared liability in Form GSTR-1 and Form GSTR-3B,” the release had said.
Tax experts said that the data analysis by authorities in their analysis should not differentiate between the IGST paid at the time of imports and the IGST paid by taxpayers during inter-state transactions. Also, there’s a possibility of taxpayers mixing up IGST paid on domestic sales and the one paid on imports. They added that there could be a time gap between availment of credit against the IGST payment on imports.
“The comparison between the IGST paid and availed as GST credits needs to be done holistically over a longer period of time, considering the fact that many taxpayers may have made inadvertent data errors while filing returns in the initial months,” MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte India said.
With the monthly GST collections staying below the Rs 90,000 crore mark for last four months, the government is taking various steps to check evasion and ensure compliance. The monthly GST collections have remained below Rs 90,000 crore since November. The GST collections for January were Rs 86,318 crore (received up to February 25), around 7.8 per cent lower than Rs 93,590 crore collected in the first month of the GST rollout.
Though other anti-evasion measure of reverse charge mechanism has been put on hold for now, the GST Council has approved introduction of e-way bill for inter-state movement of goods from April 1. It is also in the process of introduction of simplification of filing tax returns along with simultaneous invoice matching of transactions.
Source: indianexpress.com