Service tax evaders will be prosecuted, fined: CBEC

As the government focuses on taxing services to help fill up its deep fiscal deficit, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), the country's overriding indirect tax authority, said today that service tax evasion of about Rs9,800 crore has been discovered in the nine months of the current fiscal year, from April to December 2012.

"In many cases, service providers collect service tax from their clients but do not deposit it with the government," CBEC member (service tax) Lipika Majumdar Roy Choudhury told newspersons in New Delhi.

She warned that properties of service tax evaders are liable to be attached and they are liable to be prosecuted.

"Of the Rs9,800-crore, about Rs2,000 crore have been recovered," Choudhury added.

Asked whether the department would be able to meet service tax collection target of Rs1,24,000 crore for the current fiscal, Choudhury said, "I am hopeful that we will achieve the target."

During the first nine months of the current fiscal, service tax collections have grown by 34 per cent, she added.