New Delhi: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has detected  ₹1.36 trillion of goods and services tax evasion this fiscal, including cases involving fake claims of input tax credit, the finance ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. Of this, a voluntary payment of  ₹14,108 crore has been collected, the ministry added.

In the past three and a half years the probe agency has found instances of substantial tax evasion as part of a special drive.

Since June 2023, DGGI has placed special emphasis on identifying and apprehending the masterminds of syndicates operating across the country, the ministry said. Cases have been unravelled using data analysis aided by advanced technical tools, which has led to the arrest of tax evaders, it said.

These tax syndicates entice potential victims them with the promise of a job, commission, bank loan, etc to extract their ‘know your customer’ (KYC) documents. These are then used to create shell entities without their knowledge and consent, the ministry said. In some cases, such KYC details were used with the knowledge of the person concerned by paying them small amounts. In the current financial year, a total of 1,040 fake input tax credit related cases involving ₹14,000 crore have been detected and 91 fraudsters have been apprehended, the ministry said.

The tax system is based on reporting of value addition and economic activity at every stage of the value chain, so it is difficult for entities engaged in tax evasion to stay off the radar of probe agencies. Also, businesses' reporting obligations have been increased steadily to ensure better monitoring of economic activity.