Service tax

Service tax is a tax levied by Central Government of India on services provided or to be provided excluding services covered under negative list and considering the Place of Provision of Services Rules, 2012 and collected as per Point of Taxation Rules, 2011 from the person liable to pay service tax. Person liable to pay service tax is governed by Service Tax Rules, 1994 he may be service provider or service receiver or any other person made so liable. It is an indirect tax wherein the service provider collects the tax on services from service receiver and pays the same to government of India. Few services are presently exempt in public interest via Mega Exemption Notification 25/2012-ST as amended up to date and few services are charged service tax at abated rate as per Notification No. 26/2012-ST as amended up to date. Presently from 1 June 2016, service tax rate has been increased to consolidated rate at 15% of value of services provided or to be provided. The service tax rate now is consolidated rate as education cess and secondary higher education cess are subsumed with 2% of "Swach Bharat Cess(0.50%)" has been notified by the Government.

From 15 November 2015, the effective rate of service tax plus Swachh Bharat Cess, post introduction of Swachh Bharat Cess, was 14.5%. Currently, Swachh Bharat Cess and Krishi Kalyan Cess would also be levied on all services on which Service Tax is being levied and therefore, the Service Tax (including Swachh Bharat Cess and Krishi Kalyan Cess) applicable from 1 June 2016 has become 15%......

Dr. Raja Chelliah Committee on tax reforms recommended the introduction of service tax. Service tax had been first levied at a rate of five per cent flat from 1 July 1994 till 13 May 2003, at the rate of eight percent flat w.e.f 1 plus an education cess of 2% thereon w.e.f 10 September 2004 on the services provided by service providers. The rate of service tax was increased to 12% by Finance Act, 2006 w.e.f 18.4.2006. Finance Act, 2007 has imposed a new secondary and higher education cess of one percent on the service tax w.e.f 11.5.2007, increasing the total education cess to three percent and a total levy of 12.36 percent. The revenue from the service tax to the Government of India have shown a steady rise since its inception in 1994. The tax collections have grown substantially since 1994–95 i.e. from ₹410 crore (US$61 million) in 1994–95 to ₹132,518 crore (US$20 billion) in 2012–13. The total number of Taxable services also increased from 3 in 1994 to 119 in 2012. However, from 1 July 2012 the concept of taxation on services was changed from a 'Selected service approach' to a 'Negative List regime'. This changed the taxation system of services from tax on some Selected services to tax being levied on the every service other than services mentioned in Negative list.

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