Swachh Bharat Cess of 0.5% on taxable services

Government might get Rs 400 cr in financial year 2016 via this levy

The government will impose a Swachh Bharat Cess of 0.5 per cent on all services presently liable for service tax, with effect from November 15, the finance ministry stated on Friday. The proceeds are exclusively for its Swachh Bharat initiatives. The funds would go to the Centre’s kitty and would not be shared with the states.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the cess in his 2015-16 Budget, at two per cent or less on services which attracted service tax.

“Swachh Bharat Cess is not another tax but a step towards involving each and every citizen in making a contribution to Swachh Bharat...(The cess) will translate into a tax of 50 paise only on every Rs 100 worth of taxable services,” the notification said. The budgeted estimate for total service tax collections in 2015-16 is Rs 2.1 lakh crore. Had the 0.5 per cent cess been imposed for the full year, the proceeds would have been Rs 1,049 crore. However, since the cess is being imposed from November 15, for the four and a half months left in this financial year, the proceeds could be close to Rs 400 crore.

The government has various other cesses — education cess, road cess, clean energy cess, etc. The total of budgeted proceeds from all these are pegged at around Rs 1.16 crore. The proceeds are not shared with states and are used for specific end-uses or initiatives.