Centre alerts public on fake GST summons: Easy steps to verify authenticity

The Centre issued a warning on Friday about fraudsters issuing fake summons for Goods and Services Tax (GST) violations, targeting unsuspecting taxpayers.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) stated that individuals with fraudulent intentions have been creating and sending fake summons to taxpayers who may or may not be under investigation by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI).

“These counterfeit summons closely resemble genuine documents, using the Department’s logo and Document Identification Number (DIN),” the CBIC said in a statement.

However, the DIN numbers provided by these fraudsters are fake, intended to make the document appear authentic.

The Ministry of Finance has emphasized that taxpayers can easily verify the authenticity of any communication (including summons) issued by CBIC officers through the ‘VERIFY CBIC-DIN’ tool on the CBIC website.

Taxpayers suspecting they’ve received a fake summons should immediately report it to the DGGI or CGST formations.

If the DIN verification confirms a document is fake, taxpayers are urged to report it to the relevant authorities, enabling law enforcement to take action against fraudsters using counterfeit documents to deceive the public.

Last year, the government launched a special drive to identify and eliminate fake GST registrations involved in large-scale ITC (input tax credit) frauds. A coordinated effort between Central and state GST formations led to the identification of 59,000 potential fake firms for verification and investigation.