Govt to come out with negative list of service tax soon

The government will come out with a draft 'negative list' for service tax in two weeks, meaning services which are not mentioned in it would be taxed under the proposed GST regime.

"The draft paper (on negative list of services) is nearly ready and you should see this paper in two weeks," Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, VK Garg, told PTI.

Currently, only limited number of services come under the tax net. The government proposes to tax most of the services under the Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime.

Under the new regime, all services which are not mentioned in the negative list, would be taxed.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had announced in the Budget 2011-12 that a public debate on the services tax to help the government finalise the approach to GST would take place.

Mukherjee had said that many experts have argued that it will be desirable to tax services based on small negative list, so that many untapped sectors are bought into tax net.

"Such an approach will be conductive for a nationwide GST," he had said.

The GST would subsume most of the indirect taxes like excise duty and service tax at the central level and VAT on the state front, besides local levies.

A Constitution Amendment Bill is pending in Parliament which seeks to pave the way for introduction of GST.