Central GST commissionerate, the anti-evasion wing of Ludhiana and ANI Technologies, the parent company of Ola Cabs are mixed up in a tax problem. The company has been accused of underpaying GST Of INR 2.31 crore from June 2017 to March 2018 by commissionerate for its operation in Punjab, and the other party ‘Ola Cabs’ called the assertion unjustified. According to the allegations, the Ola cabs only provided 2 invoices instead of 1 to its customers further claiming ITC ruling out GST laws.
Commissionerate has proclaimed Central GST headquarters thinking that the company might have adopted the same practice in other states as well and also passed its report to the directorate general GST intelligence (DGGI), Mangalore, where another case is going on. The DGGI has been requested to enquire the GST evasion practice in all 23 states where the firm operates.
Ashutosh Baranwal, Ludhiana Central GST commissioner, said, “Ola was availing ITC on 18% GST collected by it, which is against the rules. According to the Central GST Act, the companies that fall under the category of electronic commerce operators (taxi aggregators) should issue a single tax invoice at 5% GST without claiming ITC or else they should issue tax voice at 12% GST if they want to claim input tax credit. But Ola was not following either of this and issuing two invoices to its customers, one at 5% and another at 18%, which is not allowed as per law. Other cab aggregators, like Uber, charge 5% GST without taking ITC and issue single invoice.”
On June 15, a search was conducted by the Ludhiana commissionerate at Ferozepur Road office of the company after it was not satisfied with the total GST paid by it from June 2017 to March 2018, which was Rs 2.68 crore. It should have been approx. Rs 4.9 crore, as per the department. Two invoices were issued by the company to the customers- one was of 5% GST was charged on behalf of the cab driver and second was of 18% GST which was issued on behalf of the company (Ola Cab).
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The company has nothing to do with the passenger transport service, told by the Ola Officers, who appeared before the investigators and the ruled out the allegations of single invoice and underpayment of tax, as it is just a mobile app firm.
Nothing was commented on the issue by Snigdha Mehrotra, a senior official of the company who appeared at the department office.
