The Union finance ministry is likely to put several items in the negative list of service tax in the coming budget, service tax expert Sushil Kumar Goyal said at an interactive session with members of Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Goyal, who is a member of the fiscal committee of the institute of chartered accountants, said the finance ministry is taking the opinion of tax experts about putting more items in the negative list.
Currently, there are 71 items under the purview of service tax.
According to Goyal, the items in the negative list exempted from service tax will be related to education, healthcare and related welfare activities.
Goyal said service tax on on transport services and business auxiliary services were hurting users.
Earlier, the president of BNCCI, S N Nundy, said low level of awareness regarding the nature and imposition of the tax are posing problems for assesses.
Service tax collection in the country has grown from Rs 410 crore (Rs 4.1 billion) in 1994-95 to Rs 7890 crore (Rs 78.9 billion) in 2003-04. The number of assesses also grown from 3,943 to 403,000.