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Kingfisher Airline’s owner Vijay Mallya may face prosecution in a service tax case. Though Mallya’s company has charged service tax from its customers, it was not paid to the Government.
As on December, 2012, the company had dues of Rs 190 crore, out of which around Rs 127 crore were in litigation.
“Prosecution is definitely a provision there in the Act. And that decision will be taken by the concerned commissioner,” Lipika Majumdar Roy Choudhury, Member of Central Board of Excise and Custom (CBEC) said. She was talking to media after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram released the logo and frequently asked questions on Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme for Service Tax.
Voluntary scheme
She also mentioned that the process of litigation is on show-cause notices have also been issued to Kingfisher Airlines.
“The commissioners are trying their best to recover the amount and some amounts have been recovered. But there were several show-cause notices which are in the process of adjudication,” she said.
Earlier, talking about the voluntary scheme, the Finance Minister, asked service tax defaulters to take advantage of the initiatives and come clean or face punishment. “We think that it is perfectly right and this was an opportune moment to give a once in the life-time opportunity for those who are ‘defaulters’ to come clean that is the purpose of this campaign,” he said. The scheme will be in operation till December 31.
About 10 lakh non-filers or stop filers of service tax “are in a way defaulters and they are liable to punishment”, he said, adding, the Government in the Service Tax Act has already provided for monetary penalty and punishment.
“Those who have collected service tax in excess of Rs 50 lakh and not deposited to Government face punishment of imprisonment up to seven years,” he informed. The first arrest was made in Kolkata recently.
Under the scheme, defaulters have to pay at least 50 per cent of arrears for the five-year period ending 2012 and the balance in another six months without interest.
As of today, he said, 1,400 declarations have been filed and they have declared they are liable to pay Rs 650 crore to the Government. It is working out to be Rs 50 lakh per declaration.
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