Exporters' 634 fraudulent GST refund claims worth Rs 1,912 cr detected

As many as 634 cases of fraudulent GST refund claim by exporters amounting Rs 1,912 crore has been detected by the central tax authorities between July 2017 to January 2020, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said of this Rs 238.97 crore has been recovered by the Central GST authorities from the entities which claimed the fraudulent refunds.

A total of 35 persons have been arrested by the CGST authorities, he added. "The Government has taken measures to use data analytics to identify risky taxpayers and verify them before sanction of refunds," Thakur said.

In reply to a separate question, Thakur said to identify fraudulent claims the government has taken measures to apply stringent risk parameters-based checks driven by data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. Also, a standard operating procedure has been prescribed for exporters to mitigate the risk of wrongful Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) refund claims.

To curb cases of wrongful claims of input tax credit, a tax officer not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner has been permitted to block the credit available if he has reasons to believe that such credit is ineligible or has been availed fraudulently, he said.

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