Chandigarh A seminar organized by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India on Sunday stressed on the fact that there must be awareness regarding the implementation of service tax amendments, brought into effect since July 1, as there is still confusion in the service sector. The seminar was titled Paradigm Shift in Service Tax. During the seminar, members of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, along with others, discussed the change brought baout in the levying of service tax.

The approach has led to a substantial alteration of the Service Tax Law, impacting people in terms of increased cost of services, specifically where credit is not allowed, even double taxation in some cases and compliance issues, said Rakesh Bhalla, Vice-Chairman of the Northern India Regional Council of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

Bhalla said that there is no clarity on the services that are to be covered under the new system of levying a service tax. 39 services are to be exempted and 17 others are in the negative list prepared by the department.

The chief guest was Anil Kumar Gupta, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner with the department of Central Excise and Service Tax and Atul Handa, IRS joint commissioner. Bhalla said that the impact on the consumers will be that in some cases duty is to be paid by the service receiver, for which they have to register with the Service Tax Department.

Bhalla said that the reverse charge mechanism has shifted the onus of paying service tax from the service provider to the service receiver, though without any threshold limit, as in case of the Rs 10 lakh limit, available to the service provider.

Also, he said, earlier the department was required to prove that any particular service is covered in the 119 taxed services but now, the assessee is required to prove that he is not covered under service tax.