Large taxpayers and PSUs should also be brought under the purview of AAR so that they can also come to us for any ruling related to tax (customs, excise) matters, AAR joint commissioner Vijay Kumar said.

Currently, single-window service by the income tax, customs and excise department is offered to companies in LTUs set up in Bangalore and Chennai. The government plans to expand the service in other cities including Delhi, Mumbai and later in Kolkata. Referring to lack of adequate work for the authority, Kumar said the authority was handling on an average two cases a month. As against the common opinion, he said, it was not a negotiating body but a fact finding body.

Since the rulings of the Authority were more or less binding, very few companies  approached it, he added.

Any non-resident person whether individual, company or association of persons or others can make an application for seeking an advance ruling in regard to his tax liability. In the last winter session, finance minister P Chidambaram introduced an Amendment to merge the two AARs for customs, excise and income-tax into one. He has said since the to authorities did not have enough work they could be merged.

There was need to pay more attention to a mechanism called advance ruling which could be very helpful to non-resident or resident Indians who want to set up shop here, he said. The finance ministry has hardly given any attention to the authority since its inception, said another official.