Levy of service tax - burden of proof

[C.P. SEKAR]

Whether levy of service tax on lorry frieght charges paid by the factories to individual lorry owners, who have neither issued any Congsignment nor accepted the goods at his place but transported the goods from the place of choice of the factory owner to their factory and received payments only at factory site by cash or cheque through their drivers on signing the cash vouchers at factory sight, is liable for levy of service tax? Whether the burden of proof that the lorry owner has not issued consignment note lies on the service receiver?

[Balasubramanian Natarajan]

Following are my personal views: 1.Any document issued for transportation when contains the basic information as requored will be trated as aconsignment note, irrspective of the fact that no consignment note is issued by the Lorry owners. 2.It is mentioned that Individual lorry owners. Does it mean that the Lorry owner has only one lorry which he uses for earning his lively hood. In that case he is Not a GTA and hence will not be covered onder this taxable head. 3.The place of acceptance of goods is immetrial to this issue so long as the materials transported and services rendered falls under input services.

[Surender Gupta]

Where service tax is payable on transport of goods by road and no consignment note is being issued by the transporter, it does not mean that service become non taxable. Therefore, Consignor or consignee must ensure that whether they are liable to pay ST or Not. And, if they are not liable to pay ST, they should also not worry about issuance of consignment note by the transporter from service tax prospective.

AI Summary

Debate on Service Tax for Lorry Freight: Impact of Consignment Note Absence and Single Vehicle Operators' Tax Status. A discussion on the levy of service tax on lorry freight charges paid by factories to individual lorry owners addresses whether the absence of a consignment note affects tax liability. One participant argues that any document with necessary transport details can be treated as a consignment note, and if the lorry owner operates a single vehicle for livelihood, they are not considered a Goods Transport Agency (GTA) and are not taxable. Another participant states that the lack of a consignment note does not exempt the service from being taxable, and the consignor or consignee must determine their tax liability.