Issues pertaining to levy of service tax on goods transport agency

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....d "goods transport agency" were also provided by inserting clause 50a and 50b in the Finance Act, 1994 as follows: (50a) "goods carriage" has the meaning assigned to it in clause (14) of section 2 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988; and (50b) "goods transport agency" means any commercial concern which provides service in relation to transport of goods by road and issues consignment note, by whatever name called. 3. In pursuance to an agreement dated 27th August, 2004 between the Government and representatives of the transport industry, a Committee was set up to look into appropriate mechanism/modalities for collection and payment of service tax. It was instructed vide letter issued from F. No. B2/8/2004-TRU dated 10.9.2004 that no tax would....

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....where,- (i) the gross amount charged on consignments transported in a goods carriage does not exceed rupees one thousand five hundred; or (ii) the gross amount charged on an individual consignment transported in a goods carriage does not exceed rupees seven hundred fifty. For the purpose of this notification, "an individual consignment" would mean all goods transported by a goods transport agency by road in a goods carriage for a consignee. 4.4 Notification No. 35/2004-Service Tax, dated 3rd December, 2004 prescribes that the person making payment towards freight would be liable to pay the service tax, in case the consignor or the consignee of the goods transported is one of the following,- (i) Factory registered under or governed by t....

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....t agency for centralized registration under rule 4(3A) of Service Tax Rules, 1994, should not be denied unless there is a substantial reason to believe that it would lead to evasion of service tax. In case of centralized registration, all verification or audit checks should be carried out through registered office only. 5.3 No vehicle should be stopped en route for verification of service tax compliance unless there is specific information/ intelligence about deliberate evasion of service tax. Such verification, if carried out, should be under explicit authorization, on case-to-case basis, from an officer not below the rank of a Commissioner. In such cases, the vehicle and the goods should be released immediately after obtaining photocopy ....