Tax fraud: ₹25,000 GST evasion by 18,000 bogus companies uncovered

Tax officers have detected about 18,000 fake companies registered under GST which have been involved in tax evasion of about Rs 25,000 crore, an official said. In the recently concluded all-India drive against fake companies, GST officers had identified 73,000 companies which they suspected of being set up only to avail of input tax credit (ITC) without any actual sale of goods and thereby defraud the exchequer.

“We had identified around 73,000 GSTINs for verification in the second all-India drive against fake registrations. Of this, around 18,000 were found to be non-existent. They were involved in tax evasion of about Rs 24,550 crore,” the official told PTI.

Voluntary GST payments of about Rs 70 crore were made by companies during the special drive.

The government has been taking targeted action to check fake GST registration and more physical verification is taking place. The second all-India drive against fake registration began on August 16 and continued till October end.

In the first drive against fake registration between May 16, 2023, and July 15, 2023, a total of 21,791 entities having GST registration were discovered to be non-existent. An amount of Rs 24,010 crore of suspected tax evasion was detected during the first special drive last year.