Around 5,000 companies have come under the scanner of tax authorities due to alleged discrepancies between their Goods and Services Tax (GST) filings and Income Tax (I-T) returns, Business Standard reported.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has ordered search-and-survey operations against these mid-and-small sized companies, including owners of business houses.

The information, based on GST Network (GSTN) data, has been shared with states so that they can take appropriate action immediately.

The companies allegedly inflated GST claims and under-reported income in their I-T filings, the report added.

Around 2,000 cases of mismatches have been found in Mumbai alone, followed by Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, a source told the newspaper.

Scrutiny notices were sent to some companies for utilising input tax credit to clear the bulk of the GST liabilities, the report added.

The discrepancies were found after comparing other data as well, such as gross total income, turnover ratio and sales returns provided by GSTN and other sources.

The companies claimed GST returns on transactions that were not reflected in their filings, the article quotes a source as saying.

The companies are said to have claimed input tax credit through dummy companies. In their GST filings, they showed transactions between companies that were either unrelated or had no business history. #casansaar (Source - Business Standard, MoneyControl)