Chinese smartphone makers including Oppo Mobile, Vivo India and Xiaomi Technology have been caught evading taxes worth Rs 90 billion in India, Parliament was informed on Friday.
Data shared in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar shows that around Rs 90 billion in tax evasion, comprising customs duty and GST, has been detected between 2018-19 and 2022-23.
The government has recovered Rs 1,629.87 crore from the companies during this period.
As per the data, Oppo Mobile India has been caught evading Rs 5,086 crore in taxes, including Rs 4,403 crore as customs duty and Rs 683 crore in the form of GST.
According to Chandrasekhar’s written reply, Vivo has evaded Rs 2,923.25 crore in taxes, of which Rs 2,875 crore in customs duty and Rs 48.25 crore in GST.
A tax evasion of Rs 851.14 crore has been established in the case of Xiaomi Technology India, comprising Rs 682.51 crore as customs duty and Rs 168.63 crore as GST.
Chandrasekhar reported that in 2019-20, in the case of Oppo Mobile India, Rs 4,389 crore worth of customs duty was evaded, of which Rs 450 crore was recovered.
Vivo India Mobile was found to have evaded Rs 2,217 crore in customs duties, of which Rs 72 crore was recovered in 2020-21.
In 2019-20, Xiaomi Technology India was found to have evaded Rs 653.02 crore in import duty, of which Rs 46 lakh has been recovered.
In 2022-23, Vivo Mobile India was found to have evaded Rs 658 crore.
According to official data, Lenovo has evaded Rs 42.36 crore in VAT.
According to official data, the government has been able to recover Rs 1,214.83 crore from Oppo, Rs 168.25 crore from Vivo and Rs 92.8 crore from Xiaomi.
The minister was responding to a question about the number of Chinese telephone companies evading taxes and making illegal money transfers to India.
Chandrasekhar said the cumulative revenue of Chinese mobile phone companies in India in 2021-22 was estimated to be Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
“The total direct employment they generate in their manufacturing activities is over 75,000. They also have a sales and operational workforce of about 80,000 employees,” the minister said.
