FMCG Traders arrested for GST Evasion of Rs.75 crore

The officers of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, Madurai regional unit, conducted search operations on 11-May suspecting GST evasion, at the residence cum business premises of certain traders & retailers, on intelligence that they indulged in supplying goods without issuing proper invoices.

Three traders involved in retail and wholesale trade of FMCG in Madurai were arrested for non-payment of approximately Rs.75 crore GST. These businesses implemented a policy of often deleting data from estimate-generating software and only keeping invoices for sums deposited in banks.

While B2B invoices were produced in accordance with the requirements of other merchants, workers of the units prepared random invoices in accordance with the accused’s instructions, without any basis of sale, in order to match the remaining amount placed in banks in the GST billing software.

Any cash received in person or over the counter was never reported on GST forms. To avoid paying taxes, all estimations that contained real business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions were eliminated. The forensic expert and software supplier determined the number of deleted entries in the programme, and the amounts destroyed were retrieved by systems analysts.

According to a statement, the shipments without bill amounted to 440 crore in preliminary verification, resulting in non-payment of tax by the abovementioned businesses to the tune of 75 crore.