Union Budget 2013: On offer: one-time amnesty for service tax defaulters

NEW DELHI: Finance minister P Chidambaram announced a one-time tax amnesty scheme for defaulters of service tax who have not been filing their returns.
The one-time scheme, Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme, will be offered to defaulters among 17 lakh service tax assessees. A defaulter may avail of the scheme on condition that s/he files a “truthful declaration” of service tax dues since October 1, 2007 and makes the payment in one or two installments before the stipulated deadline.If the person follows the norm, interest, penalty and other consequences will be waived.
While there are nearly 17 lakh registered assessees under service tax, only about seven lakh file returns. Many have simply stopped filing returns. “We cannot go after each of them. I have to motivate them to file returns and pay the tax dues. Hence, I propose to introduce a one-time scheme called Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme,” the FM said. “I also hope to collect a reasonable sum of money,” he added.
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