The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has detected Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion of almost ₹11,000 crore and identified more than 9,300 fake registrations after a special compliance drive over the past two months, the Finance Ministry informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Responding to a query from former Bihar Finance Minister and a member of the Upper House of Parliament Sushil Kumar Modi on fake GST registrations and tax evasion, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary shared details of the special drive that began on May 16 and was underway till July 9.
“Central Tax Administration (CBIC) has detected tax evasion amounting to ₹10,901.94 crore and realised ₹45.35 crore. Further, ITC [input tax credits] amounting to ₹470.04 crore has been blocked during this period,” Mr. Choudhary said.
While the CBIC had identified more than 25,000 GST-registered entities who were suspected to be fake, it managed to confirm 9,369 such firms as fake. So far, registrations had been suspended for 5,775 entities and cancelled for another 3,300-odd firms. Effectively, the two-month compliance drive had detected more such cases than the 8,421 entities found throughout 2022-23.
Just five States accounted for almost 60% of the suspected fake registrations, led by Delhi (4,311), Uttar Pradesh (3,262), Haryana (2,818) and Gujarat (2,569). While Delhi and Uttar Pradesh also topped in terms of registrations that were confirmed to be fake, with 3,320 such cases, they were followed by Maharashtra, with 849 such cases and Tamil Nadu, with 805 fake entities. In Gujarat, 657 registrations were confirmed to be fake.
