Punjab Taxation Department will tighten the noose around tax evaders from the service sector. Issuing the directions to the Department on Tuesday, the state Finance, Planning, Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Singh Cheema asked the State Intelligence and Preventive Unit (SIPU) and Tax Intelligence Unit (TIU) to work in tandem to trace, track, and nab the tax evaders from service sectors.
 
Cheema, chairing the maiden review meeting of SIPU, said that the Department has performed remarkably in checking tax evasion in the trade of goods, and now the need of the hour is to put a strong check over the tax evaders in the field of service sectors.
 
He asked the Department to formulate a strong strategy against those registered and non-registered service providers who were not paying GST for the paid services being rendered by them.
 
Earlier, the officials apprised the Minister about the goals and achievements of SIPU through a PowerPoint representation.
 
The newly-formed SIPU, which was earlier known as mobile wing of the Taxation Department, has 38 per cent increase in total penalty from Goods in Transit by charging a penalty of Rs 190.94 crore and Rs 43.54 crore from inspections during 2022-23 against the total of Rs 169.13 crore during 2021-22. Out of this, a penalty of Rs 121.43 crore was charged only from iron and steel scrap and finished goods, resulting in 66.44 percent of total detention.
 
The total detentions were 9,018 out of which 2,455 were from Ludhiana only. In most of the major cases where more than 20 lakh in a single vehicle, the vehicles were carrying copper scrap and edible oil.
 
In the presentation of the Tax Intelligence Unit, the Minister was apprised that the TIU has reversed the Input Tax Credit (ITC) amounting to Rs 1294.04 crore besides blocking the ITC worth Rs 52.98 crore up to March 31, 2023. This includes ITC reversal of Rs 1,084.95 crore with the inspection of 10 major cases.
 
The TIU found that some of the life insurance and health assurance firms were claiming and utilizing undue ITC. Cancelled dealers were also scrutinized by the TIU team. During scrutiny, it has been detected that many of these dealers have a huge ITC credit balance in their credit ledger. The cases are still under verification and based on the report of TIU, districts have so far reversed ITC to the tune of Rs 209.08 crore and blocked ITC worth Rs 43.20 crore.