Chewing tobacco manufacturer used decoy e-way bills to evade GST
As a new mechanism to check evasion has been placed, a western Uttar Pradesh-based ‘Khaini’ (chewing tobacco) manufacturer found a unique way to distribute its product just for evading Goods & Services Tax (GST) amounting to nearly Rs. 500 crore.
Chewing tobacco along with other tobacco products attracts GST at 28 per cent along with a cess of 0.56 times the retail sales prices making them lucrative for tax evasion .
In a communication to all officers, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Sanjay Kumar Agarwal said that the officers of DGGI (Directorate General of GST Intelligence) based on specific intelligence initiated an investigation against a manufacturing unit located in a remote city of Western Uttar Pradesh regarding clandestine clearance of chewing tobacco.
“Reconnaissance of the manufacturing premises and tracking of several vehicles moving in and out of the unit revealed that these vehicles used e-way bills of other commodities as a decoy while diverting from the declared route to unload clandestinely cleared chewing tobacco at several warehouses located in the Delhi NCR region,” he said.
