NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), premier investigating agency for GST matters, detected 6,323 cases involving evasion of taxes of Rs 198,324 crore in 2023. The department of revenue, ministry of finance, on Thursday said the detection led to voluntary payment of Rs 28,362 crore in taxes and arrest of 140 masterminds involved in GST evasion.
In 2022, DGGI detected 4,273 cases involving evasion of Rs 90,499 crore, and resulting in voluntary payment of Rs 22,459 crore and 97 arrests were made. The DGGI also detected 2,335 cases with ITC fraud of Rs. 21,078 crore resulting in voluntary payment of `2,642 crore and arrests of 116 masterminds during 2023.
As per the ministry, DGGI unveiled significant GST evasion in sectors such as online gaming, casinos, insurance sector, secondment (salary of expat employees), fake ITC among others. “Non-compliance in these sectors not only poses a threat to the fiscal stability but also involve potential social, financial as well as economic security implications,” said the ministry in statement.The GST department has served tax demand notices of Rs 1.12 lakh crore on several online gaming companies.
These tax demands are, however, under litigation and the online gaming industry is not in congruence with the revenue departments on the issue of taxation on online gaming. The department also served notices to multiple insurance companies over fake input tax credit claims in 2023.
On the issue of salaries paid to expat employees, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) recently gave respite to multinational corporations (MNCs), saying that non-payment of GST on expat salaries is a matter of interpretation. It said that the tax authorities should exercise caution before issuing tax evasion notices to Indian subsidiaries of MNCs regarding expatriate manpower deputed from abroad.