Fraudsters have been using various methods to commit GST Evasion 2023, such as undervaluing taxable goods and services to pay less tax, wrongly claiming exemptions, wrongly claiming input tax credit, not paying taxes on taxable goods and services that have been secretly removed, and fraudulently claiming input tax credit based on invoices from fake companies.

According to an official, tax officers detected nearly Rs 1.01 lakh crore in GST evasion during the recently concluded 2022-23 fiscal year, which was almost double the amount from the previous year. The officers from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) were able to recover Rs 21,000 crore during the last fiscal year.3

The official stated that the government is implementing measures to enhance compliance, and utilizing both data analytics and human intelligence to detect fraudulent activities. As per the official’s statement to PTI, officers from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) uncovered GST evasion amounting to Rs 1,01,300 crore during the 2022-23 fiscal year. Out of this amount, Rs 21,000 crore has been recovered.

During the 2021-22 fiscal year, the investigative agency under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, DGGI, detected evasion amounting to over Rs 54,000 crore and made a tax recovery of over Rs 21,000 crore. The number of Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion cases has increased in the current fiscal year, with approximately 14,000 cases detected in 2022-23, as compared to 12,574 cases in 2021-22 and 12,596 cases in 2020-21.

Fraudsters have used several methods to commit tax fraud, including undervaluing taxable goods and services to pay less tax, falsely claiming exemption notifications, falsely claiming input tax credit, not paying taxes on the supply of taxable goods and services that have been secretly removed, and fraudulently claiming input tax credit using invoices from fake companies.

Last month, in response to the Lok Sabha, the Finance Ministry stated that the total GST evasion detected between July 2017 and February 2023 amounted to almost Rs 3.08 lakh crore, out of which over Rs 1.03 lakh crore was recovered. As of February 2023, GST authorities had apprehended 1,402 individuals for evading taxes in the past five and a half years.