Rs. 13 crore tax-fraud unearthed by UP-STF, sales tax department
The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) and the sales tax department have unearthed Rs. 13 crore tax fraud case involving two subsidiaries of a company which carried out the embezzlement by means of bogus invoicing, officials said Saturday. The accused firms, RoundPay Techno Media and RoundPay Voice Tech, both registered at the same address in Lucknow, were involved in e-payment for utility services.
Firms claimed an input tax credit of Rs. 13.09 crore
The firms were involved in circular trading and had shown transactions worth Rs. 72.7 crore between them, on which they claimed an input tax credit of Rs. 13.09 crore at 18% GST. "The STF and the sales tax department were jointly entrusted with the responsibility to probe the case, a first of its kind operation in Uttar Pradesh," DSP (STF Noida), Rajkumar Mishra said.
Over 100 officers were involved in the operation: Mishra
"This trading module was studied for 45 days. It was found that their activities were being carried out in Lucknow, Pratapgarh, Noida, and Khiri also," said the DSP. "The firms were identified and their locations were physically verified. Over 100 officers were involved in the operation," he said. Mishra said to bust the racket, simultaneous raids were conducted at the firm's location in Lucknow.
Companies failed to produce invoice of trade done between them
Mishra said the raids were also conducted at the firm's subsidiaries in other towns by five teams comprising personnel of STF field-units in Lucknow, Allahabad, and Noida. "When the investigating teams asked the companies for invoice of the trade done between them, they failed to produce any. The system which they used for generating the invoice/bills had no record of this trade," he said.
No arrests has been made till now, said police
"The director of the parent company has admitted in writing to the probe agencies about the Rs. 13 crore fraud," the DSP said, adding 6 TB (terabyte) data has been recovered from the firms' servers in Noida and a detailed investigation of it was underway. "The fraud amount is likely to go up," said Mishra, adding that no arrest has been made till now.
