Friday, July 12, 2019

RID identifies new group involved in fake VAT scam

Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) today said that it has identified the third group involved in a producing and selling fake Value Added Tax (VAT) bills, after filing separate cases against two groups, though it has not arrested anybody associated with the case till today.
On June 21, the department had filed a case against 15 individuals at the Kathmandu District Court on the charge of evading Rs 2.98 billion in taxes by producing and selling fake VAT bills in one of the largest cases related to revenue fraud. “Again on March 3, the department had filed a similar case against 24 individuals for evading Rs1.75 billion in taxes through fake VAT bills,” the director general of the department Dirgha Raj Mainali said, adding that the department identified a third group involved in producing and selling fake VAT bills, while exploring the links with the two cases. “The modus operandi of the new group is the same as the previous two groups, registering the firms in the names of ignorant and illiterate people from rural areas, and producing and selling under the guise of such firms.”
Though, the department still has no clue on how many people are involved in the third group and the amounts involved in the bills that they had sold, the amount might run into billions.
When the department filed the first case on March 3, it had arrested Parameshwor Sah and Jaya Kishor Sah – with the later being the mastermind – and when the second case was filed, the department had arrested Gopal Prasad Bhattarai who – in partnership with Rimbar Dhwoj Karki – had registered various firms under the names of many villagers to run a fake VAT bill racket.
The department is investigating around 100 firms for producing and selling fake VAT bills. They claimed that they have sold such bills worth around Rs 8 billion.
Over 600 firms have been found to have purchased fake bills from the racketeers. The fake VAT bill scandal has already become larger than the one that was seen in the fiscal year 2010-11. In 2010-11, the tax authorities had decided to collect Rs 6.69 billion from 518 firms. The incident made national headlines due to the involvement of noted industrialists and businessmen.

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