₹12,000 crore GST evasion detected in Apr-Nov: CBIC
NEW DELHI: The government has detected goods and services tax (GST) evasion worth ₹12,000 crore in eight months till November, a senior tax official said on Wednesday.
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) member John Joseph said despite the electronic way or e-way bill mechanism there has been rampant evasion and there is a need to increase compliance.
“We started anti-evasion measures from April onwards, and from April-November we have detected ₹12,000 crore of GST evasion. This is huge compared to what happened in central excise or service tax side. There is huge evasion. There are smarter guys outside who knows how to pocket the money,” Joseph said addressing an Assocham event.
Joseph, who looks after investigation in the CBIC, said almost ₹8,000 crore worth GST evasion has been recovered by the tax officials. GST, which subsumed 17 local taxes, including excise duty and service tax, was introduced on July 1, 2017. Since it was a new tax, the government had decided to go slow on enforcement action in the initial months of its implementation.
Joseph said only 5-10 % of the 1.2 crore assessees are evading GST and bringing a bad name to the industry.
“We need to improve compliance mechanism.” On industry concerns as to whether a change in government might lead to an overhaul of the GST process, Joseph said: “With all the apprehensions that you have, whether the election results are going to be bad for the GST or not, I can tell you very clearly that the same politicians whether in opposition or ruling party, they all came together to conceive this.
“There may be some changes in law, some procedural changes can definitely happen, but it will not be lock, stock, and barrel as in the case of Malaysia.” He said the GST Council, comprising the centre and states, had taken all decision relating to the new indirect tax regime.
The CBIC member also said the new GST return forms will have a beta version initially, so that industry has enough time to suggest what could be done to improve the quality of returns.
In July, the CBIC had put up in public domain draft GST return forms ‘Sahaj’ and ‘Sugam’ and sought public comments. These forms will replace GSTR-3B (summary sales return form) and GSTR-1 (final sales returns form).
The new forms are slated to be launched in April 2019.
With regard to industry concerns over varied orders passed by the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR), Joseph said the centre was pushing for a national bench for AAR but it hit the roadblock as the bench was required to have about 40 members with representations from every state.