Rs 70,000 Cr GST Scam Rocks India's Restaurants

A significant Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion scam, estimated at nearly Rs 70,000 crore, has been unearthed within India's restaurant industry. This extensive probe, initiated following routine searches in cities like Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, has revealed that numerous eateries, including popular biryani chains, allegedly concealed substantial sales figures over six financial years, commencing from 2019-20.

The investigation, spearheaded by the Income Tax Department's Hyderabad unit, involved a deep forensic analysis of 60 terabytes of billing data from a software platform used by over one lakh restaurants nationwide. Employing advanced analytics and Generative AI tools, officials identified suppressed sales amounting to at least Rs 70,000 crore since 2019-20. Initial findings in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh alone pointed to hidden sales of Rs 5,141 crore.

Karnataka reported the highest value of deleted billing records at approximately Rs 2,000 crore, followed by Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Investigators discovered various tactics, including the deletion of cash invoices and under-reporting of earnings in GST filings, suggesting deliberate tax evasion. The overall scale of the detected manipulation across the analyzed billing transactions, valued at Rs 2.43 lakh crore between 2019-20 and 2025-26, marks it as one of the largest tax crackdowns in the sector.