Last Updated on 01/01/2021 by Khushi
The subsidiary services of e-commerce giant Flipkart, Instakart, recently landed itself into a mishap by enabling the use of falsely generated goods and services tax. (GST) invoices.
Instakart has been accused of availing the input tax credit by illegal means, which is worth INR 21 Crore, as per records since July 2017.
GST intelligence department probe into the matter
Apparently, it was the government headed GST intelligence department that coincidently came across the fake invoices while they were on their investigation for another case, through certain Instakart vendors.
The supposed addresses of the vendors were reportedly untrue leading the GI to summon the company with regards to their dealings with such vendors.
Instakart’s take on the matter
“The investigation by the GST intelligence wing concerns the non-payment of GST by two vendors. We are merely cooperating with the authorities to help with their findings to trace and track any wrongdoings by such vendors”, claimed a source at Instakart. The statements stood in contrast with what is otherwise known about this situation.
Adding further to their claims, the company says that the transactions executed between them and their vendors are on terms of valid GST registration certificates. Also, it says that all the invoice payments have been cleared already.
A petition that was filed to the GI, mentioned their disregards towards any such responsibility to pay tax to the government solely because it had already paid the concerned tax amount to its suppliers.
On the other hand, the government alleges that the company paid GST to the vendors on falsely obtained input tax credit using fake invoices.
The matter is currently being handled by the High Court and subjudice and further details are yet to come out.
