Fake GST Invoice Racket Of Rs 106 Crore Unearthed In Odisha

The fraud came to light after the state's GST Enforcement Wing arrested Smruti Ranjan Sahoo, the proprietor of S R Enterprises, a non-existent company, and allegedly the mastermind of the racket.

An Odisha government agency working under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) directorate on Monday unearthed a racket that issued fake invoices to the tune of Rs 106 crore, which caused a loss of Rs 19.04 crore to the state exchequer in the form of input tax credit (ITC), an official said. The ITC is the tax that a company pays on a purchase and that it can use to reduce its tax liability when it makes a sale. The fraud came to light after the state's GST Enforcement Wing arrested Smruti Ranjan Sahoo, the proprietor of S R Enterprises, a non-existent company, and allegedly the mastermind of the racket. "Sahoo, the kingpin in collusion with others, has availed bogus input tax credit (ITC) raising fake purchase invoices in the name of 14 fake business entities located at Angul, Jajpur, Rourkela, Jagatsinghpur, Bhubaneswar and Paradeep."