Auditor takes 2 GST payers for a ride

Coimbatore: The commissionerate of GST and central excise here has identified two incidents of fraudulent activities in Pollachi involving an auditor.
The first incident came to light after a divisional officer summoned a GSTIN registrant for paying the goods and service tax, said an official from the commissionerate. “Registrants will have to pay the tax on or before 20th of every month. In this case, the tax payer had given the tax amount every month to an auditor, who had taken up the job of paying the tax through the GST portal. Instead of paying the tax, the auditor created forged challans and swindled the money. Also, there were discrepancy in the submitted forms. While it was mentioned that the product comes under 5% GST slab in one of the forms, in another form, it was shown that the product was exempted from the tax,” the official said.
The auditor is estimated to have swindled over Rs 36lakh. “But nothing can be done. The applicant will have to pay the tax amount along with 15% penalty,” the official said.
Shortly after the incident, another registrant filed a similar complaint against the auditor, who had followed the same modus operandi.
“The commissionerate does not have any power over the auditors. It is upon the victims to file police complaint,” the official said and requested trade and industries bodies to create awareness among its members to prevent such incidents.