Officials to meet on Jan 7 for streamlining GST refunds, curbing evasion

New Delhi: Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey will hold a day-long brainstorming session on January 7 with commissioners of state and central taxes to discuss how the Goods and Service Tax (GST) system can be streamlined for faster refunds, enhanced compliance and discourage tax evaders.

Officials will debate on ways to curb fraud and evasion, check fake or huge input tax credit claims and seek bank account details of businesses to tally with their filings, sources said on Thursday.

They will also discuss how to curb the misuse of refunds and share the best practices in revenue augmentation.

The discussions will focus on a road ahead for e-invoicing, new return system and feedback, e-way bill linking with Fastag, pendency of refunds, linkage of Aadhaar to GST registration, enforcement module use without overreach and QR codes.

A detailed review of further use of data analytics and artificial intelligence in the process of enforcement, red-flagging tax evaders and finding a way to block fake refund claimants will also be taken up, sources said.

Officials will examine the processes designed to give the due role to collating and combined study of data from third parties like banks and IFU-India.

The meeting will also be attended by senior officers of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM), GSTN officials and field officers from enforcement wings.