A total of 15 companies, including HDFC Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz and Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, have been found to evade Rs 2,350 crore of goods and services tax (GST), according to a Moneycontrol report. It said the companies also include come public sector insurers.
The investigation has been concluded for a list of renowned insurance companies, according to the report quoting a senior government official. The list comprises 15 companies, encompassing both life and general insurance, to whom show-cause notices are currently being issued.
“The investigation on 15 insurance companies, which includes mutual funds, banks, has been completed. Tax evasion worth Rs 2,350 crore has been detected in these 15 companies. Rs 700 crore has been recovered so far. There are some public sector insurance companies also on this list. Bajaj Allianz, Sun Life, Hdfc Life Insurance, all the well-known ones are there,” the official told Moneycontrol.
The GST authorities are conducting investigations to detect fake input tax credit claims that do not have the underlying supply of goods and services. According to the report, among the probe into the insurance companies, investigations on 15 insurance companies have been completed.
Meanwhile, the report also said, quoting the official, that in the case of GST evasion by online gaming companies, there are about 5-6 which are currently under investigation.
“The GST authorities have not quantified the amount of evasion yet for these 5-6 online gaming companies,” he said, according to the report.
Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a review meeting of the ongoing drive against fake billing for GST evasion. During the meeting, Sitharaman was briefed about the actions being taken against fake registrations.
The finance minister was told that about 11,140 such registrations have already been detected and action has been initiated against them. The FM was apprised of the methods being adopted like identity theft of people.
Sitharaman took note of the existing measures being undertaken by the ministry like OTP-based verification of Aadhar and pilot of biometric-based Aadhar authentication at the time of registration in high-risk cases.
The GST officers have already initiated a two-month special drive against fake registration.
During the drive, GST Network has identified 60,000 entities which could be having fake registration and for that central and state tax officers have initiated physical verification of the premises. “We have completed 43,000 verifications. Of which 10,000 have been found to be bogus involving fake ITC claims of Rs 15,000 crore,” CBIC Chairman Vivek Johri said last month.
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