Union Minister Chidambaram arrived to Hyderabad today to attend an Awareness Program on Service Tax called Service Tax Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme (VCES) at Hyderabad.

He said that the arrears of Service Tax from 2007 October to 2012 December 31 has to be paid.  He said that 50% of the Service Tax can be paid before the end of this month and they will get a time up to June 30 to pay the rest of the amount.

Chidambaram asked to make voluntary declarations ".....make the declaration, pay half the tax by December 31- the remaining half without interest by June 30 or with interest by next December 31."

Chidambaram emphasized that it is an opportunity to the tax evaders to come clean.  It is a one time opportunity and the evaders that include non filers and stop filers.  “No-filers are those who have never filed service tax, stop- filers are those who have paid for a year or two....who later stopped filing service tax."

"These are people who collected service tax- not a small amount, collected amount in excess of Rs 50 lakh- kept it with them without remitting it to the government. How do you expect any government to show sympathy to such persons," Chidambaram said.

Chidambaram also warned that the technology has developed and the tax evaders who do not use this last opportunity will be caught and the penalty at that time will be severe.  But he says, "The root is declarations will be accepted... I'm here to collect money; I'm here to collect tax. As far as possible accept the declaration and collect the tax. We are not interested in punishing you and make life difficult for you. We are here to collect tax, we will collect it fairly- we want you to seize this opportunity and pay the service tax."

-SriJa