CHENNAI: The Goods and Services Tax Commissionerate has unearthed 50 crore GST evasion by a Coimbatore-based company, Mantra Industries Pvt Ltd , which supplies set top boxes to Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd. General manager of the company, G Velmurugan, has been arrested under the GST Act and remanded to judicial custody.The arrest comes a week after the income tax department's investigation wing started its searches against state highways contractor SPK & Co for tax evasion.The officers in the preventive unit of the GST have registered a case of tax evasion against Mantra whose GST-taxable turnover was 482 crore from July last year to April 2018.The firm has generated fake invoices to claim illegal input tax credits to the tune of 50 crore.Principal commissioner of GST, Coimbatore, G Srinivasa Rao, said, “The company generated fake invoices without actual supply of goods and availed input tax credit to avoid GST payment, causing a revenue loss of Rs50 crore.”Being managed by the same family, they manipulated the supply of goods on paper and misused credit facility to avail input tax credit. Preliminary investigation revealed that Mantra Industries imported set-top boxes on payment of duty and instead of availing only IGST credit of import, the company claimed customs duty also as credit. “They claimed input tax credit of Rs28 crore against supplies from Lakshmi Industries, a related proprietorship. On verification, we found that Lakshmi Industries showed a supply receipt from another related firm Balaji Machine Works,” said Rao.The GST commissionerate conducted searches in all three companies and found that Balaji Machine Works and Lakshmi Industries existed only on paper. “We have found that Velmurugan Ganesan is the general manager of Mantra Industries and the director of Balaji Machine Works along with his brother, father and other family members. Velumurugan is the main person behind the conspiracy, along with his family members,” said Rao.Co-accused Ganesan Nadar and Balamurugan Ganesan did not appear before the commissionerate despite summons. Further investigations are on.

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