‘Punjab losing Rs 20,000 crore to GST evasion each year’
At a time when Punjab is passing through the toughest financial crisis, the SGST Department has completely failed to check the evasion of revenue. Due to such evaders, the state is losing huge revenue of more than Rs 20,000 crore a year. The Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA) claims to have compiled a report to support and prove the volume of tax evasions in the state.
As per the data presented by the Finance Minister in the Parliament on a question by Member Parliament Sushil Modi, Punjab has shown no keen interest in checking the evasions. The figures presented to the Ministry of Finance were ‘fake and unauthenticated’ as it is not possible to recover Rs 200 crore against the GST evasion of 296 crore during 2019-20, claims FOPSIA.
President of FOPSIA Badish Jindal on behalf of the association has written a letter to the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann that the mismatched data showed the alleged connivance between corrupt officers and the bogus billing companies. Due to this, Punjab only detected 1 per cent of national evasion, he said.
