Commissioner of Trade and Taxes Rajender Kumar said the department would soon launch the scrutiny to detect the tax evaders and traders who claim Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds showing bogus transactions.

"We are streamlining the mechanism of tax collection," he said at a press conference.

In a major operation, the tax department had unearthed a "huge scam" involving nearly 1,300 "bogus traders" who used to claim VAT refunds by showing bogus bills and fake sells.

The department had launched a probe discretely choosing nearly 3,000 traders in the city, each having a yearly turnover of Rs one crore and found that nearly one-third of them were either fake or non-functional.

Kumar said his department has set a target of collection Rs 14,500 crore as VAT revenue in the financial year 2011-12 as against collection of Rs 12,068 crore in the previous year.

On the proposed Goods and Services Tax, he said the tax department was making all preparations to implement the GST as and when it is introduced by the Centre.

Listing efforts to improve tax collection, he said online payment has been made compulsory for the monthly return filers and the department is making efforts to extend this facility to other categories of dealers.

The department has made special efforts to dispose of the long pending refund cases for a better and just tax management. In the financial year 2010-2011, a total amount of Rs 367 crore was released as refund and a record number of about 26,000 claims for refunds were disposed of.

Source: Times of India, India,  dated 14/07/2011