All eyes will be on whether Sitharaman provides the much-expected tax relief for the middle class, leaving more money in their hands, as there is tax buoyancy
The on-going search operation started a fortnight back in which the evasion by firms providing real estate services, including renting and other collaborations was detected, official sources said.
In a counter affidavit filed in the court, the department has said that temporary transfer of rights to copy in a limited manner will be chargeable to service tax.
GST collections in March grew 11.5 per cent to Rs 1.78 lakh crore, buoyed by domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Monday. The gross GST collection for the last fiscal (April 2023-March 2024) stood at Rs 20.14 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mop-up in the preceding fiscal. The average monthly gross collection for FY24 stood at Rs 1.68 lakh crore, exceeding Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the preceding fiscal.
A finance ministry official said since the service tax was capped at Rs 100 for domestic and Rs 500 for international travel, in many cases, the credit of tax paid on inputs used to provide services was more than the service tax paid by the airline.
The 2010-11 Finance Bill, tabled in Parliament, proposed to expand the scope of air transport services 'to include domestic journeys and international journeys in any class' for a 10 per cent service tax.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, scheduled to meet on June 22, could take a call on ending uncertainty on taxing foreign airlines and shippers as regards certain services, a senior official in the know told Business Standard. He said the Council was expected to decide on exempting the services in question from GST - aircraft lease rentals, maintenance, crew salaries, etc. These services are provided by foreign airlines to their Indian operations.
Revenue from service tax, which has become a new focus area for Finance Ministry, has grown up substantially by over 300 times in past about two decades.
Electronic filing of service tax will be made compulsory in the next two months," CBEC member Y G Parande told reporters on the sidelines of a PHD chamber seminar.
India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh's mother Shabnam on Friday sought to clear the air on reports that the her son owes a whopping 96.43 lakh in service tax on his income from the first and second Indian Premier League season, saying the King's XI Punjab batsman was paid only for playing and not promotional activity.
Accounting regulator ICAI has called for excluding land value from the proposed service tax on the realty sector, saying land is a state subject.
Services provided by Indian information-technology (IT), marketing, and consulting companies to foreign clients may not always draw integrated goods and services tax (IGST) if a ruling by the Authority for Advance Rulings' (AAR's) Telangana Bench becomes a precedent. The AAR gave its ruling on a specific case of referral services provided by the Hyderabad-based Center for International Admission and Visas (CIAV) to foreign universities and colleges for admitting Indian students.
Supporting the striking truck operators, the National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday asked the government to withdraw the proposed service tax on transport booking agents.
The levy had to come into effect from April 1. It would now be in force from July 1.
Last week, Railway Minister Mukul Roy had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is now looking after the Finance portfolio, requesting him not to introduce service tax on passenger fare and freight traffic from July 1.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee included some more services within the service tax ambit in the Budget 2009-10.
Apparently buckling under pressure, the government has decided to exempt cable multi-system operators (MSOs) from the service tax net.
The GST collection in February grew 12.5 per cent to over Rs 1.68 lakh crore, buoyed by domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Friday. The total gross GST collection for the current fiscal (April 2023-February 2024) stands at Rs 18.40 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mopup for the same period last fiscal.
The government has broadened the ambit of services exempted from service tax for Special Economic Zones as services provided to these zones even from outside would not be taxable.
Unincorporated enterprises in the manufacturing sector lost nearly 1.8 million establishments and shed 5.4 million jobs between July 2015-June 2016 and October 2022-September 2023, an analysis of the fact sheet on 'Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE)' and the comparable 73rd round survey in 2015-16 by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed. An estimated 17.82 million unincorporated enterprises operated in the manufacturing sector in October 2022-September 2023, nearly 9.3 per cent down from 19.7 million unincorporated enterprises in July 2015- June 2016.
There are a number of steps taken that will leave more money in the hands of the taxpayers.
These include the reduction in tax rates under the new tax regime, increase in standard deduction, allowing tax collected at source to be adjusted against tax deducted at source from salaries, notes Harsh Roongta.
The increase in service tax from the 10 per cent to 12 per cent expected to impact the industry. This will negatively impact the industry. However, the reduction of cascading taxes by providing tax credits expected offset this. Also, the allowing 100 per cent deduction to the franchise model (operated by other) is positive to the sector.
The Cascading taxes has been reduced significantly by permitting utilization of input tax credits in a number of services such as catering, restaurants, hotel accommodation, pandal and shamiana and transport sectors.
The revenue collection till November-end has grown by 67.31 per cent to Rs 4,445 crore from Rs 2,657 crore in the corresponding period of the last year.
Industry associations Ficci and CII have been termed liable for service tax. Ficci has approached government for exemption from the levy.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said there are no changes in tax rates for direct and indirect taxes, including import duties. She also said the number of tax filers has swollen 2.4 times and the direct tax collection has trebled since 2014.
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