Hyderabad: With just four days left for the Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme of service tax to end, voluntary registrations have already exceeded expectations of the government.
Registrations have been valued at more than Rs 204 crore for the Telangana districts with Hyderabad alone accounting for nearly Rs 125 crore. However, construction companies and builders are still shying away from registering, said sources.
Sources at the Central Board of Excise and Customs said there had been windfall registrations since Union finance minister P. Chidambaram’s visit to the city about 20 days ago. From only about 480 registrations, the number has swelled to 1,131 till date. Sources said that declarations were worth about Rs 204 crore out of which Rs 125 crore was from Hyderabad. They added that the registrations had exceeded the targets set by the finance minister.
However, sources say that construction companies and builders, who constitute a major part of service tax payers, are still shying away from voluntarily disclosures. The government had issued a clarification that even barter deals between land owners and developers constructing residential or commercial complexes would be liable for service tax with retrospective effect before 2010.
Builders are apparently not happy with this and are still waiting for clarification. “But they can register under the VCES with whatever their interpretation of the statute is and we can work it out later. The important thing is that they voluntarily come to us,” a CBEC source said.
