Ludhiana businessmen angry over bogus billings, seek CM intervention

LUDHIANA: Miffed over cases of bogus billing of scrap, the furnace industry has urged Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann and finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema to intervene.
According to businessmen, in cases of bogus billing scam committed by organised gangs, genuine industrialists end up paying penalties. The businessmen are demanding that a joint meeting of state and central tax departments should be held in which the CM and FM should instruct departments not to harass businessmen who do not have any link with such scams.
According to Jagbir Singh Sokhi, furnace owner and president of Sewing Machine Technology Part Cluster, “Despite raids and surveys on daily basis by the taxation authorities, the cases of bogus billing have not stopped and infact it seems during last one year such incidents have increased. Bogus billing is going at a massive scale in Ludhiana, Mandi Gobindgarh and scrap is the most widely used commodity whose bogus sale purchase is shown by the gangs behind this malpractice. Genuine businessmen, specially from furnace industry, are facing huge problems due to bogus billing, major implication is summoning by tax authorities, even in cases when the purchases of such forged bills reflect in the tax returns of our suppliers.”
Sokhi also added, “Keeping in view the serious nature of our problem we have decided to take it up with the Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema and chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann. We urge them to organise a joint meeting of both state and centre tax authorities in which the clear instructions should be passed on to them to not to harass businessmen who have genuinely purchased scrap and paid tax on it. We are going to send our representations regarding this matter to CM and FM tomorrow and even meet them.”
According to Vaishno Gupta, president of Furnace and Allied Industries Association (FAIA), “Bogus billing issue has crippled furnace industry because there is large number of genuine businessmen who end up paying heavy amount of taxes and penalties in cases where fraud is committed by someone else. This is a very serious issue and it needs to be dealt with at the earliest before any further losses are caused to the industrialists.” According to Dev Gupta, General Secretary of Induction Furnace Association of North India, “The most suitable and prompt solution to solving the issue of bogus billing and stopping loot of government money worth several thousands crores by scamsters is to decrease GST on scrap from existing 18% to 5%.”