FM Sitharaman Calls for Simpler GST Process, Faster Investigations, and Stronger Tax Evasion Checks

Dipanjan Mondal

21 June, 2025:

In a push to streamline tax administration and enhance compliance, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday urged the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) to further simplify the GST registration process, expedite the conclusion of investigations in Customs and CGST cases, and step up efforts to curb tax evasion and wrongful claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).

The meeting featured detailed presentations on the performance of CGST and Customs zones, outlining both achievements and ongoing challenges in areas such as registration, return filing, audits, investigations, grievance redressal, and overall customs operations.

In its presentation, the CBIC said, “detected GST evasion grew to Rs 2,23,170 crore in 2024–25, with voluntary payments totalling Rs 28,909 crore.”

In the area of enhanced trade facilitation, facilitation of cargo through the risk management system (RMS) has steadily increased, with 86% of cargo being facilitated in 2025, up from 82% in 2022. Similarly, in 2024-25, 2140.35 kgs of seized gold were disposed of by handing it over to SPMCIL, it said.

The finance minister also directed the Central GST (CGST) formations to launch targeted awareness campaigns among taxpayers, trade associations, and industry bodies regarding the mandatory documentation required for GST registration, particularly those related to the principal place of business, it said.

This would help reduce rejections and delays in registration and enable faster processing of applications, she said. The minister also directed CGST zonal heads to have a dedicated helpdesk for GST registrations to facilitate the taxpayers in the application process.

Finance Minister also asked the board to take further measures to prevent wrongful input tax credits (ITC) claims, promptly address public grievances received through the centralised public grievance redress and monitoring system (CPGRAMS) and reduce dwell time for imports, the finance ministry said in a statement.

Sitharaman also released the fifth edition of the National Time Release Study -- NTRS 2025. According to the report, India has seen significant improvement in the average cargo release time in all four categories -- seaports, inland container depots (ICDs), integrated check posts (ICPs) and air cargo complexes (ACCs).

On the first day of the CBIC Conclave, Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary addressed and also launched the ICETAB device for export examination, which aims to reduce the transaction cost and turnaround time for trade, thereby improving India's ranking in the Logistics Performance Index (LPI).