 "150 restaurants in Mumbai found evading service tax")
Around 150 city restaurants have been found evading service tax as they have even not obtained registration from the service tax department. This was revealed when the Mumbai Service Tax Department launched survey of 700 air conditioned restaurants in the city during last week.
According to Sushil Solanki, Commissioner, Service Tax-I, Mumbai, “Meticulous surveys/investigations conducted by the department have resulted in unearthing of 40 air-conditioned restaurant cum liquor bars and 115 air-conditioned restaurants so far not registered with the service tax department and thus evading payment of service tax.”
The air conditioned restaurants holding licence to serve liquor were paying service tax from May, 2011 but from april, 2013 all A.C. restaurants irrespective of holding liquor licence or not were brought under the service tax net.
As part of their strategy, the department sourced appropriate data-base from Local Statutory bodies and identified the major Air conditioned Restaurant cum liquor Bars and Air-conditioned Restaurants.
The Sources said that the initial survey result has been positive and the restaurants have started obtaining registration but if needed, searches/surveys would be intensified in the coming days to net tax evaders.