ICICI Prudential Life Insurance gets GST 'liability' notice of Rs 492 crore

Private sector ICICI Prudential Life on Monday said it has received a GST demand notice of Rs 492.06 crore from tax authorities.

The matter relates to an industry-wide issue of input tax credit and the company believes that it has availed eligible input GST credit in compliance with the provisions of the Central Goods and Service Tax (GST) Act, 2017, and other applicable laws, ICICI Pru said in a regulatory filing.

The late evening filing said the insurer has received a show cause cum demand notice (SCN) from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), asking the company to show cause as to why a tax of Rs 492,06,48,296 pertaining to the period July 2017 to July 2022 should not be demanded.

The company would take appropriate steps in due course to reply to the SCN and contest the matter, it said.

"During the course of inquiry, the company had deposited Rs 190 crore, without accepting any liability in this regard," it said.

The deposit was made in April this year. In the last fiscal, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) initiated a GST enquiry into certain expenses for which input GST credit had been claimed by the company.

In September last year, the Mumbai unit of the DGGI said an ITC of Rs 824 crore had been availed by 16 insurance companies on the basis of fake invoices. Out of this, insurers had voluntarily paid Rs 217 crore after the DGGI investigation.

DGGI investigations revealed that these insurers were actually paying commissions beyond IRDAI's permissible limit to their corporate agents in the garb of expenses related to marketing and brand activation.