KARACHI: A top cement company is involved in a huge tax fraud scheme amounting to over Rs. 11 billion through a ghost company registered in the name of a Wapda’s deceased pensioner.
The case, which spans multiple cities and involves a web of fake transactions, has been detected by the Directorate of Internal Audit, IR, Karachi.
The Directorate has now lodged an FIR at the Customs & Taxation Court in Karachi, targeting a scheme that allegedly defrauded the government of approximately Rs. 11.3 billion.
According to the document, the ghost company, which was a primary accused in the case and investigators claim that it was at the centre of an elaborate network of fake invoices and fraudulent tax claims, was found to be operating from non-existent addresses.
When investigators visited the declared business locations in Karachi, they found other businesses operating there, with occupants stating that the said ghost company had never existed at those addresses.
The document said that the accused company had no visible signs of legitimate business operations, lacking essential elements such as office staff, godowns, or vehicles necessary for the scale of transactions they reported.
In a startling twist, a ghost company involved in this fraud was registered under the name of a former Wapda pensioner receiving less than Rs 10,000 monthly and died on January 7, 2019.
Astonishingly, the company filed tax returns and engaged in billion-rupee transactions long after his death. This dead man’s company reportedly showed a bogus sales turnover of Rs. 66.5 billion, an impossible feat for a company registered to a deceased pensioner.
It further said the investigation uncovered a complex chain of companies passing on fake invoices and fraudulent input tax claims. This chain included several firms across different tax jurisdictions.
The document claimed that a top cement company, under the jurisdiction of LTO-Karachi, was identified as a significant beneficiary of this fraudulent chain, allegedly showing fake purchases amounting to Rs. 1.6 billion, providing a financial shock of Rs. 316 million in sales tax to the national exchequer.
Talking about the modus operandi of this tax fraud, sources said that the fraudsters created a chain of fake purchases and sales between multiple companies and then claimed input tax adjustments based on these fake transactions, which the sources termed as a violation under section 73 of the Sales Tax Act 1990 by failing to provide a proper money trail for transactions.
Moreover, sources said that they exploited the “active” status on FBR’s portal to lend credibility to their operations and used “withholding adjustments” and “fake credit notes” to generate fraudulent input tax claims.
Replying to a question, they said that the Directorate has recommended legal action against the said top cement company under Section 21 of the Sales Tax Act and Rule 12 of Sales Tax Rules 2006.
Furthermore, the Directorate urged the concerned tax office to initiate an adjudication process under section 11 of the Sales Tax Act 1990 to recover the unpaid taxes and disallow all fake purchases amounting to Rs. 1.6 billion under relevant provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 after further verification and investigation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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