During the Budget Session Lok Sabha proceedings, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told the House that in this fiscal year till January, 25,397 cases of GST evasion have been detected. The net value of evaded tax stood at Rs 1.95 lakh crore.
In a shocking development, the officers of the Central GST have detected tax evasion of Rs 1.95 lakh crore in 25,397 cases in the April-January period of the current fiscal year, Parliament was informed on Monday. According to the data shared in the Lok Sabha, the total number of GST evasion cases detected by central government officers in the last five years was 86,711, with a cumulative value of over Rs 6.79 lakh crore.
In the current FY (up to January 2025), the number of evasion cases detected was 25,397, with a total amount of Rs 1,94,938 crore. Meanwhile, during the same period, a voluntary deposit of Rs 21,520 crore was made in tax evasion cases.
In the current fiscal year, the total number of ITC fraud cases was 13,018, with a cumulative amount of Rs 46,472 crore. A voluntary deposit of Rs 2,211 crore was made during the same period. According to the GST Investigation Wing data, in the 2023-24 fiscal year, 20,582 evasion cases were detected with a combined value of Rs 2.30 lakh crore.
In its previous year, 2022-23, the GST evasion detection was of worth Rs 1.32 lakh crore; in 2021-22, it was Rs 73,238 crore, and in 2020-21, it was Rs 49,384 crore.
Pankaj Chaudhary, the Minister of State for Finance, said the Central Government and GSTN have taken various steps to improve compliance and prevent tax evasions, including providing intelligence inputs, detecting fraudulent registration, and suspicious e-way bill activity and selection of returns for scrutiny and selection of taxpayers for audit based on various risk parameters.
“These measures are helpful in safeguarding the revenue and nabbing the evaders. Certain projects were also undertaken such as ‘Project Anveshan’ (Analytics, Verification, Shortlisting of Anomalies) whereby newer techniques like Facial Recognition System (FRS), E-way bill data etc. were used for early identification of GSTINs with propensity for fake/ fraudulent activity to generate Intelligence reports,” Chaudhary added.
(With PTI Inputs)