Kathmandu, October 2

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has ramped up its market monitoring across the country, collecting the details of the traders and taking action against those found selling goods without providing proper bills.

Binod Bahadur Kunwar, director general of IRD, said that the department has been collecting the data of major traders located in different cities. “A few days ago, we directed all our line offices to collect the data of large and medium-sized traders and take legal action against anyone found to be evading taxes.”

Informing that the department is acting on the tip-off that large and medium-sized traders, especially those within the valley, are evading taxes, he said, “Most of the errant traders are second-hand vehicle dealers, vehicle workshops, and importers of food items and groceries.”

As per him, some traders still have not acquired their value added tax and permanent account numbers. “After slapping penalty on such firms, we have urged the owners to register their business in the related tax offices and

conduct transactions properly by issuing bills.”

He further said that some traders have been found to be under-invoicing their goods and are facing the music as per law.

According to him, the fraud cases tend to rise exponentially during the festive season, which is one of the reasons that the department has been stricter in its monitoring activities recently.

Moreover, IRD’s market monitoring teams have found that some traders have been making duplicates of genuine invoices to import large quantity of products, primarily wheat flour. “While they use the genuine invoice for import of small quantity of products, the fake invoice is used to import larger quantity,” he informed, adding that such type of scams have become more widespread in the recent days. It may be because the government has removed the VAT refund provision from the ongoing fiscal year, he added.