The Union Government has brought seven new services under the service tax net from June 1, this year. The Central Excise Commissionerate (Service Tax) of Mangalore will open special counters at divisional offices in Mangalore and Udupi on August 2 and 3 for spot registration of the assessees, the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs, M Ajit Kumar, said here on Monday.

He told presspersons that telecommunication service; mining; renting of immovable property service for use in the course of furtherance of business or commerce; and service provided in the execution of a works contract, excluding works contract in respect of roads, airports, railways, transport terminals, bridges, tunnels and dams, have been brought under the service tax net.

In addition to this, designing service; asset management, including portfolio management, and all forms of fund management service provided by any person; and development and supply of content service for use in telecommunication services, advertising agency services and online information and database access or retrieval services have been brought under the service tax net.

Ajit Kumar said the new services would attract tax only if their aggregate value of taxable services exceeds Rs 8 lakh per annum for the year 2007-08. (Hence the maximum exemption limit available is, taxable services provided upto Rs 8 lakh in an year.) However, such service providers should register their names with the department, the moment the aggregate value of taxable services in a year exceeds Rs 7 lakh.

Service tax is levied at 12.36 per cent (12 per cent service tax, 0.24 per cent education cess and 0.12 per cent secondary and higher education cess) on the seven new services. Ajit Kumar said the Commissionerate had, in 2006-07, collected Rs 3.9 crore Central Excise against a target of Rs 2.9 crore. The Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited contributed about 94 per cent of the total revenue collection in that year. Its contribution stood at Rs 3.7 crore in the last financial year.

The Government has fixed Rs 3.95 crore as Central Excise revenue target for 2007-08, he said.

Ajit Kumar said the Customs Commissionerate, Mangalore, had collected Rs 600.35 crore customs duty in 2006-07 against the target of Rs 590 crores. The Government had fixed a target of collecting Rs 840 crore Customs duty in 2007-08, he added.

K Kesavan and P Rangaswamy, Joint Commissioners, Central Excise, Mangalore, were present.