Buoyed by the 67.31 per cent rise in its revenue collection till November 2003, the service tax department has revised its national revenue target for 2003-04 to Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) from the earlier Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) and said it would launch a massive campaign to double its assessee base.
The revenue collection till November-end has grown by 67.31 per cent to Rs 4,445 crore (Rs 44.45 billion) from Rs 2,657 crore (Rs 26.57 billion) in the corresponding period of the last year, K P Singh, director general (service tax), told reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday.
He said around 100,000 new assesses have been added during the first eight months of 2003-04 and the target was to double the base to about 450,000 assesses in the current fiscal.
Under the campaign to meet the revised target and increase the assesse base, the department would prepare street-wise directories of service providers and refocus on evasion prone services and increase anti-evasion interventions.
The department would take a lenient view on the penalty aspect for those who voluntarily come forward and pay service tax dues, he said, adding the estimated service providers were about 30 lakh (3 million) of which only 300,000 were under tax net.
The services tax department would work in close interaction with the local income tax authorities to cross-check the returns of the service tax assessees, he said.
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