GST Council Taking Severe Measures to Prevent Tax Evasion

Source: Financial Express

Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is speculating over measures to curb tax evasion due to the concerns over the rise in the number of cases. The minister of state for finance, Anurag Thakur, had recently said in a reply to Rajya Sabha that since the implementation of GST on July 1, 2017, the amount of GST evasions is estimated to be ₹ 45, 682 crores.

He added that an amount to the tune of ₹ 6,520.40 crores has been unveiled in the April-June period of the fiscal year 2020 alone. In a written reply to the upper house, Anurag Thakur also said that in the two years of GST implementation, a total of 9,385 cases were reported. Out of this total amount, 1,593 cases were reported in the first three months of the current financial year.

Taskforce to detect and take action against tax evasion

Raising concerns over the issue, West Bengal’s Finance Minister Amit Mitra had written to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asking to set up a task force comprising of state and central officers to detect all cases of tax evasion and also take severe action against racketeers for recovery of evaded tax. He also said that hurried and unplanned rollout of GST has not only led to evasions but also lower tax collection.

In the meantime, the GST collections for the month of August fell below the mark of ₹ 1 lakh crore. According to the data released by the finance ministry, the collections slipped to ₹ 98,202 crore in August. The gross GST collections for the month of July stood at ₹ 1.02 lakh crore. Through the implementation of One Hundred and First Amendment of the Constitution of India by the government, the GST came into effect from July 1, 2017.