FM Sitharaman announces pan-India roll out of biometric authentication to curb fake invoicing

FM Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced at the 53rd GST Council meeting held on June 22 that a biometric authentication system will be rolled out pan-India to curb instances of fake invoicing.

The Aadhaar authentication is expected to combat fraudulent input tax credit claims, the Finance Minister said.

This was the first GST Council meet to be held since the formation of Modi government 3.0. It was attended by Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, chief ministers of Goa and Meghalaya; deputy chief ministers of Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha; finance ministers of states and UTs and senior officers of the Ministry of Finance and states/ UTs.

She said, "There is going to be a rolling out of biometric-based Aadhaar authentication on an all-India basis. This will help us to combat fraudulent input tax credit claims made through fake invoices in the cases..."

The roll-out of the biometric authentication system will be done in a phased manner and apart from helping curb ITC frauds, it will also strengthen the registration process in GST, the Ministry of Finance said in a release.

Addressing a press conference after the meeting, the FM further said, "The council has recommended retrospectively amending the time limit to avail input tax credit under section 16(4) of the CGST Act for invoices or debit notes filed up to 30-11-2021, covering the financial years 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21."

Earlier this year in April, Moneycontrol had reported that the recovery rate in Goods and Services Tax (GST) cases pertaining to input tax credit (ITC) fraud has gone up significantly in FY24, with the Directorate General of GST Intelligence(DGGI) recovering more than 12 percent of the dues against 2-3 percent in the previous years.