New Delhi, Sept 14 (KNN) In a bid to look into the cases of profiteering under the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the government has announced that a forum led by a four member committee will be receiving complaints of undue profiteering under the new tax regime.

The four member committee will comprise of tax officials of both centre as well as states, officials from the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). Also officials from Delhi and Haryana tax department will be a part of the team.

An official notification by the department informed that the CBEC officials Himanshu Gupta, Principal Commissioner from GST Delhi; O.P. Dadhich, Principal Commissioner Customs (preventive) from Delhi; H. Rajesh Prasad Commissioner (sales tax) Delhi and Ashima Brar excise and taxation commissioner Haryana are the members of the committee.

The prime focus of the committee would be to look at the complaints that cite business and enterprises not passing on the benefit of the new tax regime to the lower levels of the taxation pyramid.

The government informed that the anti-profiteering monitoring mechanism would work as per the given structure under which com plaints that are of local levels would be sent to the state-level screening committee whereas complains of national level would be sent to the standing committee.

Following this, if the complaints have genuine merit, the state level and the national level committees would direct them to the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) that would do the investigation and submit its report to the anti-profiteering authority.

According to the notification, The authority will be given the jurisdiction to cancel registration of any entity or business if it fails to pass on to consumers the benefit of lower taxes under the GST regime.

While it would be a punitive step towards the end, initially the authority may direct the firm to return the undue profit earned from not passing on the reduction in incidence of tax to consumers along with 18% interest, along with the imposition of a penalty on the defaulter. (KNN/ DA)