The government will make electronic filing of service tax mandatory within a couple of months, said a senior official of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

Electronic filing of service tax will be made compulsory in the next two months,'' CBEC member Mr Y G Parande told reporters on the sidelines of a PHD chamber seminar.

Mr Parande also expressed hope that the government would meet service tax collection target during the fiscal despite impact of stimulus package on revenue realisation. The government proposed to collect Rs 65,000 crore as service tax during the year.

The service tax collection during the first seven months has gone down by 5.4 per cent to Rs 28,926 crore compared with corresponding period last year.

Attributing decline in revenue collections to incentives given by the government to help the economy combat the impact of global slowdown, Mr Parande said, certainly, the stimulus packages have had the effect (on indirect tax collections), particularly because rates were brought down.''

The indirect tax collections, including customs, excise and service tax, declined by 21.6 per cent to Rs 1,26,903 crore during the April-October period.