NEW DELHI: With a lower-than-estimated tax collection, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) will verify demands of top 50,000 taxpayers whose claim for Goods and Services Tax (GST) transitional credit exceeds Rs 25 lakh, to check any possible tax evasion.
“There are some unreasonable transitional credit claims under the GST filling. We will verify all such claims to detect possible tax evasions. We have identified such taxpayers and prepared a list of 50,000 such claims, which are suspected to be fraudulent. The CBEC has shared the list with field offices and they will further scrutinise the claims,” a CBEC official told TNIE.
According to revenue department data, as much as Rs 65,000 crore of transitional input tax credit was claimed by businesses as on September 2017. The official added that verification of these transitional credit claims would be conducted in four phases. One-third of the remaining claims of 50,000 taxpayers will be verified in three phases — July-September, October-December and January-March (2019).
Taxpayers were allowed to file Form TRAN-1 and avail tax credit on the basis of closing balance of the credit declared in the last return under the pre-GST regime.
In the first phase, the tax officers will verify transitional credit claims where the growth is more than 25 per cent or the credit availed is in excess of Rs 25 lakh. This is to be completed by June and a status report has to be given to the CBEC by July 10. Taxpayers who have claimed transitional tax credit of more than Rs 25 lakh and have reported 25 per cent increase in such claims are also likely to be asked to submit a detailed statement of purchases during October 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, the source said.