Tax evasion of Rs 29,088 crore detected in 1,835 cases during April-October 2018

The total number of cases where service tax was evaded stood at 1,145 involving Rs 22,973 crore. In the case of central excise duty, the DGGI detected 119 cases where tax evaded was worth Rs 1,553 crore.

The investigation arm of the Finance Ministry has detected tax evasion worth Rs 29,088 crore in 1,835 cases during the April-October period of the current financial year, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Of this, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), which is the enforcement agency for checking indirect tax evasion, has detected evasion of goods and services tax (GST) worth Rs 4,562 crore in 571 cases. However, the bulk of the evasion was detected in case of service tax.

The total number of cases where service tax was evaded stood at 1,145 involving Rs 22,973 crore. In the case of central excise duty, the DGGI detected 119 cases where tax evaded was worth Rs 1,553 crore.

"DGGI officers have detected total indirect tax evasion of Rs 29,088 crore during April-October," the official told PTI.

He further said that the total amount of detection was likely to be more as the data does not include detection by field offices of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).

On recovery of evaded taxes, the official said that a total amount of Rs 5,427 crore was realised during the seven-month period till October. These, he added, includes recovery from previous cases and those detected during the current financial year.

Of the total recovery, Rs 3,124 crore was from GST evaders, followed by Rs 2,174 crore in case of service tax, and Rs 128 crore from those who had evaded central excise. The larger chunk of recovery during April-October in GST, the official said, can be attributed to the decision of the CBIC to tighten on evaders.

With a view to focus on checking evasion, the apex indirect tax body had in September set up the Office of Commissioner GST (Investigation), headed by Neeraj Prasad.

Last month, the Finance Ministry had extended the informant reward scheme of central excise and service tax to GST. The scheme was modified to include officers of other government agencies like police, BSF, CISF and coast guard.

As per the reward scheme, informers and government servants were eligible for reward up to 20 per cent of the net sale proceeds of the contraband goods seized and/or amount of duty/ service tax evaded plus the amount of penalty levied and recovered.

With respect to cases of detection of drawback frauds or abuse of duty exemption schemes under various Export Promotion Schemes, the informers are eligible for reward up to 20 per cent of recovery of drawback claimed fraudulently and/or recovery of duties evaded.

GST, which subsumed 17 local taxes like excise and service tax, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. In the run-up to launch of the new indirect tax regime GST, the ministry had renamed the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), mandated to check service tax and central excise duty evasion, as DGGGI.