The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : `Pay service tax or face action'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 11, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

`Pay service tax or face action'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MARCH 10. The Director-General, Service Taxes, K.P. Singh, while appealing for public cooperation and voluntary compliance, cautioned service tax providers to pay up what they should under the law.

At a press conference here on Thursday, he said the department was identifying service tax providers from the websites they had registered and listing them out for action.

He said the Customs and Central Excise Department was working to achieve a target of collecting Rs. 17,500 crores as service tax in the financial year 2005-06.

The services sector was very important and contributed 52 per cent of the GDP, he said while in contrast the manufacturing sector's contribution was only 19 per cent.

Detailing the focus on increasing assessee base, he said while it had gone up from 10,419 as on April 1, 2004, to 18,853 by February 28, 2005, showing a growth rate of 81 per cent.

Searches planned

The department had been extremely considerate until now but as the financial year 2004-05 came to a close, he felt some `less-than-pleasant interventions' were necessary.

He warned of increased searches on evaders, cautioning them to take advantage of the situation now and pay at least the principal amount due.

For the year 2005-06, the Customs and Central Excise Department would gear itself from day one, endeavouring and planning to achieve targets, Mr. Singh said, adding that service tax was the tax of the future. "Today you may not pay but tomorrow we will make you pay with penalty. With web-based tracking we will strike," he warned.

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