Skip to main content

Taxmen slap big penalty to check evasion of GST

By
Taxmen slap big penalty to check evasion of GST
A fine of 100,000 per cent is something few people would have heard of, or even thought about. A trader in Andhra Pradesh was recently asked to cough up more than that for not paying the goods and service tax.

In a show cause notice, an Andhra Pradesh tax officer has asked the said trader to pay Rs 20,000 in fines after he omitted Rs 15 GST in a bill. “It’s clearly established that you wilfully violated the provisions (of GST law)…a punishable offence,” the notice said.
This comes about two months after the government had asked almost 200 government officials across the country to go on a shopping spree and identify traders and shopkeepers who were flouting GST norms.
ET was the first to report on July 8 that the government has deputed 200 senior IAS, IPS and IRS officers across cities and small towns as sleuths to identify businessmen, wholesalers and retailers violating the norms of GST.
It seems these officers have now started reporting such cases to the relevant tax officials and the latter has begun to crack down on such traders.
“During the visit to your business premises you have sold one ready-made shirt worth Rs 300 to a customer and collected the full amount, but failed to issue tax invoice, and thereby, evaded GST,” the tax notice issued to the trader on September 5 read. ET reviewed a copy of the notice.
The quantum of fine is not defined under the GST law and is at the discretion of tax officers.
However, some industry trackers said going after traders in such a manner may keep many small traders and businessmen away from GST.
“Ideally no penalty should be levied for minor transgressions as the law is of recent vintage and there could be inadvertent mistakes committed initially by taxpayers,” said MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India. “It would be better to encourage taxpayers who have been out of the indirect tax fold to come into the GST framework without any fear of penal action,” he said.
“The penal provisions can be invoked once taxpayers are familiar with its provisions and current issues being faced  by taxpayers are settled,"said Mani.
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 28th September 2017     

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RBI deputy governor cautions fintech platform lenders on privacy concerns during loan recovery

By
  India's digital lending infrastructure has made the loan sanctioning system online. Yet, loan recovery still needs a “feet on the street” approach, Swaminathan J, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, said at a media event on Tuesday, September 2, according to news agency ANI.According to the ANI report, the deputy governor flagged that fintech operators in the digital lending segment are giving out loans to customers with poor credit profiles and later using aggressive recovery tactics.“While loan sanctioning and disbursement have become increasingly digital, effective collection and recovery still require a 'feet on the street' and empathetic approach. Many fintech platforms operate on a business model that involves extending small-value loans to customers often with poor credit profiles,” Swaminathan J said.   Fintech platforms' business models The central bank deputy governor highlighted that many fintech platforms' business models involve providing sm
Post a Comment
Read more

Credit card spending growth declines on RBI gaze, stress build-up

By
  Credit card spends have further slowed down to 16.6 per cent in the current financial year (FY25), following the Reserve Bank of India’s tightening of unsecured lending norms and rising delinquencies, and increased stress in the portfolio.Typically, during the festival season (September–December), credit card spends peak as several credit card-issuing banks offer discounts and cashbacks on e-commerce and other platforms. This is a reversal of trend in the past three financial years stretching to FY21 due to RBI’s restrictions.In the previous financial year (FY24), credit card spends rose by 27.8 per cent, but were low compared to FY23 which surged by 47.5 per cent. In FY22, the spending increased 54.1 per cent, according to data compiled by Macquarie Research.ICICI Bank recorded 4.4 per cent gross credit losses in its FY24 credit card portfolio as against 3.2 per cent year-on-year. SBI Cards’ credit losses in the segment stood at 7.4 per cent in FY24 and 6.2 per cent in FY23, the rep
Post a Comment
Read more

India can't rely on wealthy to drive growth: Ex-RBI Dy Guv Viral Acharya

By
  India can’t rely on wealthy individuals to drive growth and expect the overall economy to improve, Viral Acharya, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Monday.Acharya, who is the C V Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern), said after the Covid-19 pandemic, rural consumption and investments have weakened.We can’t be pumping our growth through the rich and expect that the economy as a whole will do better,” he said while speaking at an event organised by Elara Capital here.f there has to be a trickle-down, it should have actually happened by now,” Acharya said, adding that when the rich keep getting wealthier and wealthier, they have a savings problem.   “The bank account keeps getting bigger, hence they look for financial assets to invest in. India is closed, so our money can't go outside India that easily. So, it has to chase the limited financial assets in the country and
Post a Comment
Read more