Goods and Services Tax (GST) sleuths detected tax evasion worth a whopping ₹404 crore in Chandigarh in the past five years.
This was shared by Union minister of state for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary on Wednesday during the ongoing winter session of Rajya Sabha.
Giving the annual break-up, the minister said GST evasion amounting to ₹26.39 crore was detected in financial year 2019-20; ₹39.64 crore in 2020-21; ₹67.10 crore in 2021-22; ₹145.38 crore in 2022-23; and another ₹125.92 crore in 2023-24 up to October.
He further informed that of the total tax evaded, ₹16.76 crore was recovered in 2019-20, ₹18.82 crore in 2020-21, ₹40.36 crore in 2021-22, ₹89.92 crore in 2022-23; and ₹44.14 crore in 2023-24 up to October, totalling ₹210 crore in five years.
The minister also shared that three people were arrested for tax evasion in Chandigarh in 2020-21, whereas no arrest was made in other financial years. However, as many as 58 cases of GST invoice fraud were registered in Chandigarh from 2018-19 to 2022-23, and two arrests had been made.
Chaudhary earlier informed the Parliament that three fraudulent cases of GST registration by misusing PAN and Aadhaar details of other people to claim input tax credit (ITC) were detected in Chandigarh from July 1, 2017, to July 30, 2023. Two persons, who had claimed a total amount of ₹10.64 crore as ITC, had been arrested.
The UT administration had carried out a special drive to weed out fake bogus registrations from May 16 to July 15 this year.
A senior official of the UT excise and taxation department said in most cases, fraudulent taxpayers were engaged in passing off fake ITC. They detected bogus taxpayers who were not found at their principal place of business, and were indulging in fake transactions, causing a loss of ₹60 crore to the government exchequer. In some cases, vigilance was already conducting inquiries, the officer added.