GST Department raids on Mobile Phone Dealers in Gujarat; Tax Evasion of Rs. 22 crore Detected

The State GST department conducted searches on 79 mobile phone dealers in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, and Bhuj and discovered tax evasion of Rs. 22 crore through the companies’ false rebate claims.

According to senior officials, the companies purchased phones with tax invoices and sold them without bills. The rebate for such book purchases was used for B2B sales to carry out systematic tax evasions.

Of the 79 dealers, 57 were located in Ahmedabad, while there were eight in Surat and two in Vadodara.

“The majority of the dealers were not keeping records of mobile phone companies, model numbers, IMEI numbers, and so on, making it difficult to track sales. The searches turned up over 500 phones with no entries. Around Rs. 3 crore was collected from the vendors,” said an official, adding that further investigation is underway.