Officials pose for a photo during the training held at the Training Centre of the Commissionerate of State Taxes at Taxes Colony, Lengrijan, Dimapur on September 17.
Dimapur, September 24 (MExN): The Taxes Department of the Nagaland government conducted a three-day specialised training programme on Show Cause Notice (SCN) adjudication under Sections 73 and 74 of the CGST Act, 2017, and enforcement operations for tax officers across the state.
The training was held from September 15 to 17 at the Training Centre of the Commissionerate of State Taxes at Taxes Colony, Lengrijan, Dimapur.
The programme was attended by adjudicating officers, enforcement wing officials, Assistant Commissioners of State Taxes and senior officers of the department.
The training was structured into two integrated modules covering demand adjudication and field enforcement aspects of GST administration.
The first module focused on SCN adjudication under Sections 73 and 74, including the distinction between Section 73 cases involving non-fraud situations and Section 74 cases involving fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts.
The sessions covered proper invocation of statutory provisions in SCNs, limitation periods, essential elements of a valid SCN, computation of tax, interest and penalty, response timelines and principles of natural justice under Section 75 of the NGST Act.
Participants were informed that the limitation period is three years for Section 73 cases and five years for Section 74 cases from the due date of the annual return.
The training also covered recent judicial precedents, including Supreme Court rulings emphasising that allegations of fraud must be explicitly stated in the SCN itself and cannot subsequently be introduced through counter-affidavits.
The second module focused on enforcement operations and equipped officers with practical skills for conducting field operations, including inspection drives against fake invoices, bogus registrations and non-compliant dealers.
Sessions also covered search and seizure procedures under GST law, documentation, inventory management and chain of custody, as well as intelligence-based operations using data analytics, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B mismatches and e-way bill tracking to identify high-risk taxpayers.
Coordination with other agencies, including commercial tax intelligence units, police and transport departments, legal safeguards during enforcement actions and post-enforcement procedures such as issuance of notices, adjudication of seized goods and follow-up recovery actions were also discussed.
Senior officers from the Commissionerate, empanelled GST practitioners and enforcement specialists served as resource persons.
As part of the programme, participants analysed case studies involving SCN drafts, enforcement reports and seizure memos, identifying common deficiencies and discussing corrective measures.
Officers also raised queries relating to jurisdictional issues, clubbing of notices across financial years, materiality thresholds for invoking fraud provisions, coordination between adjudication and enforcement wings, and handling of transitional provisions.
Participants were provided with reference materials, including section-wise comparison tables covering Sections 73, 74 and 74A, checklists for SCN validity and enforcement compliance, computation templates for tax, interest and penalty, standard operating procedures for inspection, search and seizure, and recent CBIC circulars, state notifications and court judgments.
Speaking on the occasion, the Commissioner of State Taxes, Nagaland, said accurate and legally sound SCN issuance, coupled with professionally executed enforcement operations, was critical to maintaining the integrity of the GST administration system.
The Commissioner said improper invocation of fraud provisions, mechanically drafted notices and procedurally flawed enforcement actions had led to successful challenges by taxpayers in higher courts, resulting in revenue loss and reputational risk for departments.
The Commissioner said enforcement measures, including inspection drives against fake invoices and registrations, inventory checks and tracking of goods movement through railway parcel offices and e-way bills, had been intensified across the state to strengthen compliance and curb tax evasion.
The department had earlier conducted training on arrest warrants and legal procedures under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and GST Act, 2017, on May 5; induction training on GST for newly appointed Commercial State Tax Officers on May 22; and in-depth training on Section 73 and 74 SCN parameters, verification and adjudication on September 15 and 16.
The department said the latest programme was the fourth on-site training conducted for state tax officers, in addition to several online training programmes conducted by GSTN and the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics (NACIN).
The training programme is part of the department's ongoing activities relating to issuance of SCNs under Section 73 for FY 2022-23 and Section 74 for FY 2020-21, which have reached the limitation period, and its efforts towards capacity building, compliance enhancement and dispute reduction under the GST regime.
Similar programmes on other aspects of GST administration, including scrutiny notices under ASMT-10, demand recovery from DRC-01 to DRC-07 and appeal mechanisms, are planned in the coming months.
