GST evasion worth 39,000 crores is detected by the government in 6,585 cases in April to October period.
To give an idea, this amount is more than the GDP of Tripura. In the rest of the 5 months of this fiscal year, the amount is expected to increase and better the total tax collection under newly implemented indirect tax regime.
The government is using data analytics to detect tax evasion and underreporting of sales, “It is time to leverage the large amount of data generated over the past one year to check for tax evasion, since all the processes are online, we have centralized data that is easy to analyze and search for discrepancies,” said Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Chairman of GSTN.
The e-way bills system implemented on April 2018 has helped in the detection of tax evasion worth 27.6 crore rupees so far. The government made e-way bills compulsory for the value of the goods exceeding Rs. 50,000 in motorized conveyance and 1100 cases were detected under this. The highest numbers of cases were registered in Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Gujarat. Tamil Nadu led the way accounting for almost half of the total number of detections. The small state of Tripura coming second is a surprise; this suggests that Biplab deb government is running very efficient administration despite all the attacks from left-liberal establishment.
This is also evidence of the hypothesis that there was rampant corruption under Manik Sarkar.
The central excise evasion worth Rs 3,028 crore in 398 cases and service tax evasion worth Rs 26,108.43 crore was unearthed in 3,922 cases.
The total indirect (GST, service tax, excise and customs) tax evasion detected in first seven months of the fiscal is 75,000 crore which is more than the GDP of Goa.