Foreign OIDAR firms to pay service tax from Dec 1

Overseas companies providing OIDAR services which include website hosting, film download, online advertisement and newspaper subscriptions, will have to pay service tax from December 1, 2016.
In order to provide a level playing field to Indian service providers, the revenue department has decided to withdraw service tax exemption given to online service providers located in foreign territory but providing taxable online information and database access or retrieval [OIDAR] services.
"Thus cross border business to consumer (B2C) OIDAR services provided by a foreign service provider to a person in India will become taxable from December 1, 2016 onwards," an official statement said.

Currently, service tax is levied at 14 per cent, plus cess.
OIDAR services, according to CBEC, include webpage hosting, online maintenance of programmes, remote systems administration, data warehousing, cloud storage and software download.
It also includes downloading of games, music, distance teaching, and supply of images, text and information and making available of databases.
The statement said that a simplified online mechanism of taking registration has been prescribed and registration will be deemed to be granted online on submission of registration application.
Also, a simplified mechanism of online payment of taxes and online filing of returns is being prescribed.