Service Tax department to focus on 5 evasion-prone sectors

Sectors include aviation operations, manpower recruitment and security agencies, works contract and construction

Faced with lower-than-expected growth in Service Tax collection, the revenue department has decided to focus on five key sectors, including telecom and renting of property, where the possibility of tax evasion is high.

The sectors, according to the Service Department, which have been identified as evasion prone include aviation operations, manpower recruitment and security agencies, works contract and construction.

"With a view to improve collection, the Service Tax department has prepared sector specific profile of five sectors which are prone to evasion," a senior official told PTI.

The profiling is being done with an aim to help in service tax audit and scrutiny of returns, the officer said.

"Senior officials will be entrusted with the task of profiling of each of the five sectors," the official added.

Sector specific profiling would be in addition to the manual scrutiny of service tax returns of assesses based on risk parameters which has been initiated from August 1.

The detailed manual return scrutiny would be conducted in respect of such assesses whose total tax paid for 2014-15 is below Rs 50 lakh.

The government has budgeted to collect over Rs 2.09 lakh crore from service tax in the current fiscal, a growth of 25% over the last financial year.

During April-July of the current fiscal, the service tax revenues rose by 20.1% to Rs 60,925 crore. The rate of growth was, however, less that 75.4% in case of excise and 21% in case of customs.