A tax consultant and two businessmen have been arrested for allegedly evading Rs 58 crore tax through 87 companies that existed only on paper, an official of the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) said today.
The regional unit of DGGI here made the arrests under section 132 (1) of the CGST Act after preliminary investigation. The accused were produced in a court today which remanded in judicial custody till June 2, the official said.
The accused had registered companies in the name of their employees, neighbours and even people who died years ago, he said.
According to the DGGI, 17 teams raided 21 business and residential premises in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan from where Jaipur-based tax consultant Pankaj Khandelwal and two Uttar Pradesh-based businessmen Sandeep Kumar Agarwal and Shriram Kumar Singh were arrested.
Incriminating documents, including bank records, cheque books, company documents, foreign and Indian currency notes, mobile calls records were seized.
"Preliminary investigation detected Rs 58 crore tax evasion for transactions worth Rs 316 crore. The accused generated bogus invoices through companies that existed on papers for availing input tax credit. The goods were not issued by the firms," the Additional Director General (ADG) of DGGI Jaipur, Rajendra Kumar, said at a press conference.
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Sandeep Kumar Agarwal and Shriram Kumar Singh did transactions through M/s Radhika Enterprises and Honey Enterprises. Further, transactions were done through 87 firms that existed only on papers. Khandelwal helped in registration of those firms through fake IDs and documents, he said.
The ADG said more arrests are likely in the case and it is yet to be examined whether the accused evaded VAT and Service Tax prior to implementation of the GST.