Almost 4,900 fake GST registrations have been cancelled by GST authorities

GST authorities have identified about 17,000 non-existent GSTINs and cancelled over 4,900 registrations in the ongoing pan-India drive against fake registration, a senior tax official said on Wednesday.

Currently, there are 1.40 crore businesses registered under Goods and Services Tax, nearly double the number of businesses registered in the indirect tax regime pre-GST rollout.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) member Shashank Priya said in the drive against fake registration, till July 4, over 69,600 GST Identification Numbers (GSTINs) have been selected for physical verification by field tax officers.

Of this, over 59,000 GSTINs have been verified and 16,989 have been found to be non-existent.

Out of the 69,600 GSTINs, over 11,000 GSTINs have been suspended and 4,972 registrations have been cancelled.

This involved tax evasion of over Rs 15,000 crore, blocking of input tax credit (ITC) was Rs 1,506 crore and recovered taxes worth Rs 87 crore, Priya said at the Assocham's National Conclave on GST.

The two-month long special drive to curb fake registration under GST, which began on May 16, will end on July 15.

Fake registration is a menace under GST as fraudsters wrongfully avail ITC by issuing fake invoices and defraud the exchequer.

Priya further said that the tax department is looking at bringing in more granular reporting of data in monthly tax returns from GSTR-3B. This would help in better matching of GSTR-3B and GSTR-2B, which is an auto-drafted ITC statement.