service tax on publishing e-journals

[Sanjeev Sharma]

An Indian Company publishes e journals. It collect monthly or yearly subscrption from the clients. In some cases, passwords are mailed to clients and then they access the journals online from the web site of the publisher company. In other cases, e journals are e mailed to the clients. In both situation, what is the liability or applicablity of service tax on the publisher company??

[Rama Krishana]

IT is clear from the query, that activity is in the nature of providing information online or allowing the facility of access or retrieval through online system (internet or computer system). Therefore, sending ejornals and allowing access through passwords, would be subject to service tax.

[Sanjeev Sharma]

Thanks. What would the status where e journals are e mailed to the clients ??

[Rama Krishana]

Sending journals through email, can not be a service of providing database access and retrial system. By receiving, the recipient can access your database or information through computer networking? Not liable to service tax.

[Faiz Siddiqui]

I am an individual running online Journal and adopted open access model. We charge fee from authors to publish their articles in our online journals.

Is the fees charged from authors come under any tax ?

AI Summary

Service tax on online information access: access via passwords is taxable while emailed journals generally are not. Taxability depends on delivery: providing subscribers with passwords or enabling online access to e journals is treated as supplying information online or database access and retrieval and is subject to service tax, whereas directly emailing journal content to subscribers is not considered database access and is not taxable under that category; fees charged to authors for publication are queried but not addressed conclusively.