A senior official said that the tax evasion worth Rs 29,088 crores in 1,835 cases during April-October period in the present fiscal year has been detected by the investigation arm of the finance ministry.
The enforcement agency for checking indirect tax evasion, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has discovered evasion of GST (Goods and Services Tax) worth Rs 4,562 crore in 571 cases. Service tax department got to see the highest number of GST evasion and that even in bulk. The total of 1,145 cases of service tax has been evaded worth Rs 22,973 crore.
The total number of 119 cases has been evaded worth Rs 1,553 crore by the DGGI in the central excise duty.
The officials told, “DGGI officers have detected total indirect tax evasion of ₹29,088 crore during April-October”.
He further added that the total amount of detection was most probably more as the detection by field offices of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) was not included.
On the improvement of evaded taxes, the official said that during the seven-month period till October, the total amount of Rs 5,427 crore was registered. This includes recovery from past cases and those detected during the present fiscal year.
The total recovery from GST evaders was Rs 3,124 crore, followed by Rs 2,174 crore in case of service tax and Rs 128 crore from those who have evaded central excise.
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During April-October there was a larger piece of recovery in GST said the official adding that the decision of tightening the evaders by the CBIC can be attributed. The Office of Commissioner GST (Investigation) was also made to set up by the GST council which is chaired by Neeraj Prasad.
The informant reward scheme of service tax to GST and central excise had been extended by the finance ministry last month in October. To involve officers of other government agencies like CISF, police, coast guard and BSF, the scheme was changed.
According to the reward scheme, government servants and informers were qualified for reward up to 20% of the net sale proceeds of the illegal goods seized and/or amount of duty/ service tax evaded plus the amount of penalty charged and recovered.
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If there is any detection of abuse of duty exemption scheme and drawback frauds under Export Promotion Schemes then the informers are qualified for reward up to 20% of recovery of drawback which is claimed fraudulently and/or recovery of duties evaded. GST came to existence on July 1, 2017 which contains 17 local taxes like excise and service tax. It is to be noted that the ministry had renamed the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) as DGGGI.
