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Visakhapatnam, June 14

The Central Board of Excise and Customs is expecting Rs 3,20,000 crore of revenue during the current financial year through indirect taxes (central excise duty, customs duty and service tax) against Rs 2,80,738 crore in 2007-08, according to Mr P.C Jha, Chairman of the board.

He was delivering the key-note address at the fifteenth annual seminar organised by the Tax Law Research Group here on Saturday in association with a New Delhi-based Web site, taxindiaonline.com.

He said the Union Government could get Rs 3,10,000 crore through direct taxes in 2007-08 and the target for the current fiscal was Rs 3,65,000 crore. Expressing happiness over growing the base of service tax, he said the department was facing staff shortage due to the fact and 700 officers had been diverted to service tax to deal with the situation. Further, he said, 1,700 more would be recruited for service tax alone.

Service tax growth

He said service tax was growing by leaps and bounds, from a level of Rs 450 crore when it was first introduced 14 years ago to the present level of Rs 51,133 crore during 2007-08, and that the target for the current financial year had been fixed at Rs 64,600 crore.

"From a tax-payer base of 3,900 to 4.5 lakh at present, it has been wonderful. Now, 106 services are brought under the service tax net. Still, we are dealing with service tax with soft gloves, as it is a relatively new tax," he explained.

Mr G. Prabhakara Sastry, convener of the Tax Law Research Group, brought to the notice of Mr Jha certain problems faced by the trade on payment of service tax on road works and the notices issued by the local zonal authorities, the issue of classification of the stevedoring services, and also the heavy service tax levied on small-scale aluminium utensil manufacturers.

The contractors undertaking road works in the State said the Union Government had exempted and excluded ports, roads, railways, and other such categories from payment of service tax and therefore they had not collected service tax from the State Government.

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