A decision was today taken to constitute a panel of Centre and state officials for designing a detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) to check fraudulent GST refund claims.
The decision was taken at the 2nd National GST conference of the Commissioners of State Tax and Chief Commissioners of Central Tax held today. The conference was held under the chairmanship of Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, Ministry of Finance.
The conference focused on streamlining Goods and Services Tax (GST) system and plugging revenue leakages.
After the day-long in-depth deliberations, various measures were decided for necessary action.
The Committee of Centre and State officers that will be constituted to curb fraudulent refund claims will come out with detailed SOP within a week, which may be implemented across the country by January end.
Considering fraudulent IGST refund claims, it was explored to link foreign exchange remittances with IGST refund for risky and new exporter.
All major cases of fake Input Tax Credit, export/import fraud and fraudulent refunds shall also be compulsorily investigated by the investigation wing of the Income Tax Department.
An MoU would be signed among CBDT, CBIC and GSTN to exchange data through API, from CBDT to GSTN and CBIC and vice-versa. During the conference, it was decided that this data should be shared on quarterly basis, instead of being shared on yearly basis.
It was also suggested to provide a single bank account for foreign remittance receipt and refund disbursement.
CBIC, the GST policy wing, presented ways to bridge the compliance gap and enhancing revenue, which would result in recovering unmatched credit, reviewing refunds, management of non-filers, reporting of electronic invoice to GST system and comprehensive and coordinated audit.
Senior officers of CBDT, CBIC, FIU, Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management and GSTN officials were present at the meeting.
