Haryana has fourth highest number of GST evasion cases in India in last 3 years

Bhartesh Singh Thakur
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 22

Haryana has the fourth-highest number of GST evasion cases across the country in the last three years, according to Central GST authorities.

As per the figures placed before the Lok Sabha during the ongoing session, there have been 1,708 cases of Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion in Haryana amounting to Rs 3,182.32 crore, from July 2017 to August this year, which is 3.4 per cent of overall evasion in the country.

Delhi tops with 3,182 cases of GST evasion, followed by 2,540 in Maharashtra and 1,739 in Gujarat.

However, in the quantum of evasion, many states are ahead of Haryana even as it leads among the neighbouring states. Punjab has witnessed an evasion of Rs 656.27 crore in the last three years while Himachal Pradesh (HP) has Rs 271.36 crore, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has Rs 256.27 crore and Chandigarh has Rs 39.90 crore.

Ten people have so far been arrested for evasion in Haryana, while six in Punjab have been apprehended so far. No one was arrested in Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and J&K.

There have been 20,233 cases of GST evasion worth Rs 93,642.08 crore and 408 people have been arrested since July 2017 in the entire country. The quantum of GST evasion has been the highest in Maharashtra at Rs 20,056.05 crore followed by Rs 14,022.54 crore in Delhi and Rs 8,782.78 crore in Karnataka.

No central tax officer is involved in the evasion, informed Union Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, in a written reply to a question.

The House was told that “GST evasion is being prevented/reduced by the use of data analytics, checking E-way bills, and developing specific intelligence”.

Recently, the Tax Research Unit of the Excise and Taxation Department Haryana zeroed in on 138 newly registered taxpayers of the state under GST for their suspicious transactions. These taxpayers were identified by the data analytic capabilities of the Tax Research Unit. As many as 69 of the 138 cases were fake or non-existent. The verifications of the records of these entities revealed that these taxpayers had passed on credit amounting to Rs.1,182.23 crore.

The Excise and Taxation Department is further digging out the beneficiaries to whom the credit was passed on by these fake taxpayers. These beneficiary entities would also be liable for recoveries arising from fake transactions, the spokesman said.