Fin Min detects about Rs 1,000 cr customs, excise duty evasion

The Finance Ministry has detected customs and excise duty evasion of at least Rs 1,000 crore between January and July.

As many as 229 cases of customs duty evasion and 255 cases of excise duty evasion were detected by economic intelligence officials during the period. The amount of excise duty evasion was about Rs 982 crore and that of customs was at least Rs 100 crore, a Finance Ministry official said.

A scrutiny of customs duty evasion cases revealed that mis-declaration and undervaluation of imported goods were the common modus operandi followed by fraudsters in order to cheat the exchequer, the official said.

The misuse of Indo-Thailand Free Trade Agreement for importing gold bars, evasions of duty in import of liquor, external or portable data storage drives and excess quantity of Chinese cigarettes and mis-declaration of Chinese batteries and Ammonium Chloride were detected in these cases.

The officials also detected undervaluation in import of fingerprint identification and card based security systems by undervaluation and evasion of import duty by incorrect classification of tablet PCs.

Whereas, production of iron and steel, vehicles parts and accessories and malted foods and chocolates were prone to excise duty evasion, the official said.

As many as 569 cases of service tax evasion were also detected by various central excise and service tax formations across the country during the period. The amount of evasion involved in these cases was Rs 589.40 crore.

The Finance Ministry officials have given stern warning to tax evaders to pay their dues or face necessary action.

The ministry has set indirect tax collection target, comprising customs, excise and service tax, of Rs 5.65 lakh crore for 2013-14, up from Rs 4.73 lakh crore in the last fiscal.