Please give some example, it would be great.. ! thanks in advance !
Long Post ahead. Please be patient.
Pre-GST and Pre-demon days we used to have different Sales Tax exemptions in different states. If you are selling interstate, you can charge the sales tax rate of that product in your state or you can charge Interstate 2% against Form C given by Buyer.
For example you are a food manufacturer in Hyderabad. You make cookies or Namkeen etc. But you would also register yourself as a manufacturer of Papad. That is because Papad has zero tax rates in some states. For example, in Tamilnadu, Papad has zero tax rate and is called Appalam in local language and in local sales tax schedules. You may stock your consignment truck with many food items but predominantly invoice Appalam on that sale. The truck crosses from your state AP into Karnataka presumably on the way to the invoiced destination in TN. The crossing happens in the night time. The lazy officer at the border who is half awake asks for the invoice at the counter and the experienced truckers who ply on the same route every day and who already became friends with the check post staff place the Invoice and way bill on the counter with Rs. 100 below. The guy in the counter is very happy and puts is Chapa on your waybill. Now these supposed Appalams which in reality are namkeen/Cookies/Biscuts which have very high tax rate are now dumped across Karnataka or even AP to some local dealers and without any trace of original invoiced appalams. Your buyer in Karnataka got tax evaded cheaper products which he pushes into retail and sends you the money through Hawala.
Those days you could just invoice Appalams to TN and just not send anything and even send something else to Delhi in a different direction and both the lorry agencies can help you accomplish this for a small fee of Rs. 350 per trucker. After a couple of days you have in your hand a government stamped waybill showing you sold appalams to TN at 2% tax and further sale from TN to anywhere in the country is tax free. You should have paid 15% tax otherwise.
Down the line ICICI Bank got into the game and offered these traders current accounts in which cash can be deposited at any ICICI branch without transaction fees and no questions asked. So the Karnataka buyer would deposit the cash in your ICICI account at any Karnataka location. This way ICICI Bank competed with Hawala guys. You would record this as Appalam sale at 2% tax to TN. Another customer of yours in TN would send you the C form against the appalams he supposedly received. TN does not bother to investigate the further sale etc. since appalams are tax free there. The money deposited by the Karnataka guy would be recorded by you as received from the TN guy. Sales tax officers, Checkpost guys, truckers, banks are all complicit in this case.
The above is just a hypothetical example. You can guess several permutations and combinations of such practices in the earlier tax system.
Now how did GST plus demon achieve in curbing these practices?
Now GST data is centralised and the Govt can use its big data to find out how much Maida you need to produce 5000 KG of milk biscuits. It can verify if you bought that Maida from any one of these states or even import from abroad. It can track aberrations.
In GST the tax rates are same irrespective of the destination and origin state. Cash deposited into your account beyond Rs. 2,50,000 was tracked by the Central Govt. Now they don’t even need these inefficient and corrupt check posts. They made everyone register under GST under one pretext or other like your customer had to pay input credit on your behalf if you are not registered. Now this rule is relaxed. Another example is you must compulsorily register if you are doing interstate sale even if you are below the threshold limit of registration. Now this rule is also relaxed.
I said earlier that demon was just one step in the bigger scheme of things. In the recent budget they brought in TDS for withdrawing more than 1 Cr. from your bank account in the year.
Now how will this help? Even now some buyers are forced to pay cash for certain items. For example you are in the business of packing and selling pulses in your brand. Branded pulses are taxed at 5% while unbranded are taxed at 0%. Your vendor is forcing you to pay cash and he is not reporting this to Income Tax. Now you cannot withdraw without drawing attention and you will not be able to effectively buy from this vendor. Even your competitors will now avoid this vendor. Now this vendor will come around and trade in white or will close shop. The chances of closing shop are there as well because such people are generally inefficient and if they pay tax their business is unviable. So all the while our tax system was supporting inefficient business with corrupt tax system and gaping loopholes. The current Govt. is plugging these loopholes and forcing efficiency/competitiveness on the country’s businesses.
Oh, I can just go on and on in this subject. I wish the Govt hires me.