The National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) has made a pitch for the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Central and State Tax Officials and presented it before the 35th GST council meeting on June 21.
According to the proposed SOP, all commissioners of CGST and SGST will single out the top 20 suppliers including distributors, manufacturers and service providers, under their jurisdiction, the cases wherein the prices or MRP and availability of Input Tax Credit (ITC) are prone to be affected by the mutations in tax rate or any additions in ITC advantages.
The draft says “The first B2B (business-to-business) invoices of these suppliers’ value chain, for the relevant period, may be checked, for any prima-facie violation of anti-profiteering provisions,”
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This step will bolster the anti-profiteering measures in India wherein the Commissioners (CGST and SGST) will obtain the data from such suppliers and accumulate the evidence, like invoices of pre-GST cutback phase, to prepare the brass tacks of the case.
The CGST Act 2017 authorises the commissioners to make mock purchases in order to collect an invoice for the documentation. Here an anti-profiteering cell will be needed for the data collection and boosting the awareness.
As per Rule 128 of the CGST Rules 2017, a complaint can be filed by the commissioner or any interested party or person. A commissioner, being a pistol, can empower any GST official to file an anti-profiteering case. However, most of the complaints filed until today are from the consumer’s side.
At the central level, the CBIC (Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Custom) has the authority to issue instructions to its officials. At the state level, the States’ tax government can issue instructions to GST officials after the approval by the GST Council.
National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) is faring forward with steady efforts as a result of which it passed 65 orders in the month of May and now they have come up with SOP. The authority is working at different levels which are classified as the Directorate General of Anti-profiteering (DGAP) in the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Custom, a Standing Committee, and Screening Committees at State level.
In the present scenario with the pace of disposing of four cases every month, 54 matters are awaiting for the hearing. DGAP is left with the sum of 170 pending cases for investigation, while the Standing Committee and State Screening Committees are left with more than 100 pending cases for the scrutiny. This led to the NAA extension for 2 years which means the present NAA will continue to work till November 30, 2021.