Revenue dept casting a wider excise net

Faced with the prospect of a shortfall in excise tax collections, the finance ministry is stepping up efforts to garner revenue by increasing the number of assessees in areas like service tax.

The revenue department has instructed its field formations to get more assessees to register as service tax payers and directed the officers to set up registration camps.

The concept of registration camps had been initiated in November last year and had generated a good response. The number of assessees had increased by as much as 50 per cent, an official said. "We expect the number of assessees to go up by around 10,000-15,000," an official said.

In addition, the facilitation scheme allowing assessees to clear their outstanding or delayed dues has also been extended by a month. The scheme was to end on October 30. The scheme, similar to an amnesty scheme, allows the assessees to pay up their dues without any penalty.

The department had also introduced fast-track adjudication for disposing of litigations.

The director-general of service tax, based in Mumbai, has been asked to identify potential service tax payers by following international practices, such as looking up the yellow pages or trade directories.

Another method being suggested was to contact large corporates to obtain names and addresses of their various service providers.

"The main objective behind the exercise is to identify large service providers. We do not want to target those who have a turnover of a couple of thousand rupees only," an official said.

There are at present 4.5 lakh service tax assessees in the country, and the government has set a target of mopping up an estimated Rs 13,500 crore this fiscal from taxation of services.

Officials said that more assessees are likely to be added to the list of service tax payers with the transport sector having agreed to come under the service tax net.