Government forms office of GST commissioner to curb GST evasion

GST: Hit or miss?

It is safe to say that the implementation and operations of GST had some initial glitches with the GST return procedures amongst others, most of these glitches have been resolved to a good extent. The government also had it’s hands full providing bi-monthly compensation to states which rose significantly in the past few months. Add on top of that the 5-year compensation promised by the center to states and it looks like after the implementation issues, the government is facing a different set of challenges with GST. These just form the administrative challenges for the GST department. These challenges do not represent fraudulent activity from taxpayers. In order to address the issue of GST evasion, the government has recently formed the office of the GST commissioner (investigation).

This appointment of the office of the GST commissioner (Investigation) has been introduced to speed up the enforcement action and also as a measure to alert business owners to be thorough with the compliances. The government hopes that implementing this legislative office will bring the fraudulent evaders to the foreground where they can be proceeded against within the guidelines of such prosecution.

Mr. Neeraj Prasad has been appointed as the first Commissioner GST (Investigation)

GST Commissioner(Investigation) Roles

The CBIC(Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs) issued a set of guidelines drilling down the responsibilities of the Commissioner GST(investigation). The commissioner will be handed the responsibilities of policy issues along with legislative matters including Search, Arrest, Seizure, Prosecution, and compounding under GST act. This list is also extended to the Excise Act along with service tax related matters.

The commissioner will also be tasked with shouldering the responsibility of overlooking the functioning of the DGGSTI(Directorate General of GST Intelligence) and GST field formations.  Commissioner will be directly involved in the investigations of cases of evasions along with search and seizure operations on searches, arrests etc.

In the list of responsibilities of the commissioner is coordinating with DGGSTI and DGARM(Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management) and helping provide necessary and relevant intelligence to act upon for the field formations.

The office of the Commissioner GST (investigation) plans to act as a junction for coordination among various departments of GST council related to investigation and enforcement agencies. The office will also assist with conducting research and analyzing the MO(modus operandi) of tax evasion under GST in India.

Therefore, it becomes a vital procedure for all businesses to comply with GST regulations in order to avoid the scrutiny of this newly formed legislative office. At LegalRaasta, we can help you with everything from GST registration, Income Tax Return filing, company registration as well as trademark registration for your business.  Sign up with our state-of-the-art GST software Taxraahi, for your free trial!