The Hindu Business Line : `Service taxes survey is just awareness drive'

THE Finance Ministry has said that its ongoing exercise of a nationwide survey on service tax should not be considered as a "harassment," but only seen as an attempt to spread the "awareness levels" on the need for service providers to conform to the current legal requirements on payment of service tax.

"We have not launched the survey to harass any existing or prospective assessee. The survey should be seen as a move aimed at educating the assessee about his responsibilities and, at the same time, help us in widening our service tax base," Mr S.K. Misra, Member, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), told Business Line here.

Mr Misra said that the Revenue Department was confident of surpassing the target of Rs 8,000 crore that has been initially fixed for 2003-04. "The service tax collection trend has been encouraging, and in the first nine months it has grown by about 68 per cent. This has prompted the Government to revise the Budget target from Rs 8,000 crore to Rs 8,300 crore for 2003-04," Mr Misra said. The CBEC official also said that the Government has budgeted Rs 13,500 crore from service tax for the year 2004-05.

The nationwide survey on service tax being conducted by the Excise Department has evoked a mixed response, with some of the prospective service providers seeing this survey as a prelude to the raising of demand notices.

The CBEC is hopeful that the total number of registered service providers (service tax base) would cross the four-lakh mark by March this year. The service tax base, as on March 31, 2003, stood at 2.3 lakh assessees.

Service tax collections up to December 31, 2003, stood at Rs 5,089 crore, with telephone services alone contributing Rs 728 crore towards the service tax kitty during the first nine months of the current fiscal.