Experts lay stress on service tax at seminar

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 13

The Taxation Bar Association (TBA) held a seminar on service tax. Additional Advocate General, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Jagmohan Bansal was the key speaker.

Bansal explained that service tax is, as the name suggests, a tax on services. It is a tax levied onthe transaction of certain services specified by the Central Government under the Finance Act, 1994. It is an indirect tax (akin to Excise Duty or VAT) which means that normally, the service provider pays the tax and recovers the amount from the recipient of taxable service. Normally, the person who provides the taxable service on receipt of service charges is responsible for paying the service tax to the government.

Jatinder Khurana, General Secretary of TBA, said service tax return was mandatory for all assessees to be filled, electronically twice in a financial year.