GST evasion of Rs 7.08 lakh crore detected in last five fiscal years: Pankaj Chaudhary
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary has said that in the last five fiscal years (2020-21 to 2024-25), total GST evasion detected by Central GST (CGST) field officers stood at about Rs 7.08 lakh crore in 91,370 cases. Taxes recovered during the period by way of voluntary deposit stood at over Rs 1.29 lakh crore. The evasion data includes input tax credit (ITC) fraud of about Rs 1.79 lakh crore in 44,938 cases between FY21 to FY25.
Chaudhary stated in FY25 fiscal alone, over Rs 2.23 lakh crore of Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion were detected by CGST field officers. Of the 30,056 cases of GST evasion detected in FY25, more than half or 15,283 cases pertained to ITC fraud, where the evasion was to the tune of Rs 58,772 crore. In the FY24 fiscal, Rs 2.30 lakh crore worth GST evasion was detected by CGST field officers, involving ITC fraud of Rs 36,374 crore.
In FY23, about Rs 1.32 lakh crore GST evasion was detected, including Rs 24,140 crore of fake ITC claims. In FY22 and FY21, GST evasion stood at Rs 73,238 crore and Rs 49,384 crore respectively. This included ITC fraud of Rs 28,022 crore and Rs 31,233 crore respectively. Besides, he said the central government and GSTN are taking various steps to prevent tax evasion, such as digitization through E-invoicing, GST analytics, highlighting of outliers based on system-flagged mismatches, providing actionable intelligence and selection of returns for scrutiny and selection of taxpayers for audit based on various risk parameters. He said these measures are helpful in safeguarding the revenue and nabbing the evaders.
