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

Service tax on road transport: liability may arise despite absence of consignment note; receiver must verify obligation.
Levy of service tax arises on road transport of goods even if no formal consignment note is issued; transport documents containing required details may be treated as equivalent to a consignment note. Non issuance of a consignment note does not automatically exempt the service from tax, and consignor or consignee must assess and ensure service tax compliance. An individual lorry owner operating a single vehicle may be treated differently from a commercial transporter for taxable classification.