Over 13,000 GST Evasion Cases In 2022–23: Finance Ministry
The government says many important measures had also been undertaken to prevent GST-related offences.
The Ministry of Finance informed parliament on Monday that 13,492 cases of evasion of goods and services tax had been registered in the first 11 months of the current fiscal.
In a written reply to a question, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha about the number of GST offence cases registered during the last five years.
State-wise data on the amount of evasion, recovery and arrests made under these cases from the 2018 fiscal to February of 2022–23 was also shared.
The total evasion amount came up to Rs 3,07,991 crore, recoveries amounted to Rs 1,03,801 crore and the arrests tallied up to 1,402 in the last five years.
Chaudhary said many important measures had also been undertaken by the government during the period to prevent GST-related offences. These include using data analytics and artificial intelligence to identify and track risky taxpayers and detect tax evasion, and nationwide special drives against entities for availing and passing on input tax credit fraudulently via bogus invoices.
"The availment of ITC has been restricted to invoices and debit notes furnished by the supplier in their statement of outward supplies," the minister said.
Other measures include:
Data sharing with law enforcement agencies.
Mandatory Aadhaar-based authentication for new registrations
Suspension of registrations of registered persons who default in timely filing of returns.
Reduction in threshold limit for issue of e-invoice for business-to-business transactions.
E-way bill integration and tracking with RFID.
Making beneficial owner liable for penal action if supply has been made without issuance of an invoice, or invoice has been issued without supply or excess ITC has been availed/distributed.
Amendment of Section 83 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act.