The biggest tax reform in the history of Indian Taxation was rolled out on the midnight of July, 1st 2018. It has been more than 8 months since then and slowly but steadily we are seeing the after effects. More than 68,000 companies have been registered during the period. A clear indication of the initial tremors having settled down and the dawn of a new transparent and efficiency oriented business environment. The same was confirmed by the minister of state for corporate affairs who in a written reply to the Lok Sabha confirmed that during the period from July 2017 to February 2018 (post-GST), the total number of companies registered was 68,299.
The number for the same time duration during the pre-GST period stood at 63,106. Hence, GST has brought a significant increase of nearly 5000 over the past eight months. Further, there were only 7,270 active entities out of the 17 lakh registered companies during the pre-GST period. Also, 780 listed companies have been summoned as well as face likely prosecution due to non-filing of financial statements and annual returns.
As on December 2017, The Registrar of Companies (ROC) has zeroed down on 2.26 lakh companies for failing to comply with regulatory requirements. These companies had failed to file their financial statements or annual returns for a continuous period of two or more fiscals. The prima facie failed to record any active business operations during the period. Maharashtra tops the list with as many as 59,849 such companies. Delhi occupies the second podium with 43,925 tax evading companies within its boundaries. The southern giants, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka occupy the 3rd and 4th spot with allegedly 24 and 18,165 such companies respectively. Gujarat, a model of development for rest of the country, encountered for about 11,389 such companies.
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The ROC’s have also taken into consideration the pending 48,886 prosecutions for the violation of Companies Act. About 4,703 such prosecutions have been discarded till now. The rest of the prosecutions are awaiting their verdict in the days ahead.
