Rs.10,000 crore of cross-border tax evasion in 3 years

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Over the last three financial years, 4,590 cases of cross-border tax evasion valued at Rs.9,951 crore have been detected, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Friday.

The figure of detections for the current fiscal till September is 672 cases amounting to Rs.1,379.57 crore, Jaitley said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

According to the finance minister, Customs' field formations, including the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, detected 1,914 cases involving tax evasion worth Rs.4,769.25 crore in 2013-14. The number of cases detected in 2012-13 and 2011-12 was 1,487 and 1,189, respectively, involving tax evasion of Rs.2,207.55 crore and Rs.2,975.14 crore respectively.

"All field formations of Customs have been sensitised to thwart and prevent any attempt of cross border tax evasion," Jaitley said.

"Periodic audit of returns and financial records of central excise assessees is carried out and focus is given to collection of information and faster investigation of cases of evasion of central excise duties," he added.

Replying to another question, Jaitley said 1,396 Tax Evasion Petitions (TEPs) regarding undisclosed income or assets have been received in Central Board of Direct Taxes since July 1, which have been forwarded to the respective income-tax departments for appropriate action.

"Each TEP is taken into cognizance for further course of action, depending upon nature of information and facts and circumstances of the case," Jaitley said.

On Thursday, inaugurating the 2nd Regional Customs Enforcement Conference here, Jaitley asked revenue intelligence agencies to increase cooperation with their global counterparts to fight tax evasion and smuggling.

"Revenue intelligence officials must increase global cooperation to check tax evasion and smuggling. Effective steps to curb tax evasion and avoidance are necessary to ensure that free trade remains fair trade," he said.