In a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary revealed that Central GST field officers have detected tax evasion amounting to a staggering ₹7.08 lakh crore over the five financial years from 2020–21 to 2024–25. A significant chunk of this — nearly ₹1.79 lakh crore — was linked to fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims.
The data was shared during the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament, offering a comprehensive breakdown of GST evasion patterns and enforcement outcomes.
GST Evasion Year-wise
According to the data:
- FY 2024–25 saw evasion of over ₹2.23 lakh crore, including ₹58,772 crore from 15,283 ITC fraud cases, out of a total of 30,056 cases.
- FY 2023–24 registered the highest evasion at ₹2.30 lakh crore, with ITC fraud contributing ₹36,374 crore.
- In FY 2022–23, evasion stood at ₹1.32 lakh crore, including ₹24,140 crore in ITC-related fraud.
- The figures for FY 2021–22 and FY 2020–21 were ₹73,238 crore and ₹49,384 crore respectively. Of this, ITC fraud accounted for ₹28,022 crore and ₹31,233 crore.
In total, between FY’21 and FY’25, 44,938 cases of ITC fraud were unearthed, amounting to nearly ₹1.79 lakh crore.
Out of the 91,370 total cases of GST evasion detected over the five-year period, voluntary tax deposit and recovery have yielded over ₹1.29 lakh crore, Chaudhary informed.
Measures to Curb Evasion
The minister highlighted that the government, along with the GST Network (GSTN), has introduced a number of technological and procedural safeguards to tighten enforcement and minimise evasion. These include:
- E-invoicing for better invoice traceability
- Use of GST analytics
- Flagging outliers based on system-detected mismatches
- Generating actionable intelligence
- Risk-based audit and scrutiny of returns
“These measures are helpful in safeguarding the revenue and nabbing the evaders,” Chaudhary stated.
GST Collections vs Revised Estimates
Responding to a separate question on actual collections, the minister noted that net Central GST (CGST) collections in 2024–25 reached ₹10.26 lakh crore, which is 96.7% of the Revised Estimates (RE) of ₹10.62 lakh crore.
In 2023–24, collections slightly exceeded expectations, with ₹9.57 lakh crore in receipts — 100.1% of the RE of ₹9.56 lakh crore.
Net CGST figures include CGST, the central share of Integrated GST (IGST), and compensation cess.
The data underscores the ongoing challenge of tax evasion under the GST regime, especially through bogus ITC claims. While the scale of detection and recovery is significant, the Finance Ministry’s reply also reflects the increasing use of digital surveillance and data analytics to plug revenue leakages and bolster compliance.
