why Govt is proposing that LAWYERS have to pay service tax?
Querist :
Anonymous
(Querist) 08 March 2011
This query is : Resolved
why Govt is proposing that LAWYERS have to pay service tax?
Y V Vishweshwar Rao
(Expert) 09 March 2011
Yes there is proposal - we have to protest the same - As advocate Services can not be equated with other services - otherwise the Tax component is to be included in the Fee also and the client will have to pay the same !
R.Ramachandran
(Expert) 09 March 2011
Dear Mr.YVR, with due respect, when we are thinking in terms of moving towards GST, logically all the services need to be brought under the net, to ensure continuity of the credit of the tax paid.
When even 'laundry service' and 'beauty parlour service' have been brought under service tax net, I do not think that there is any justification for leaving out the 'legal service'.
Whether it is service or sale of goods, it is the ultimate consumer who has to take the burden. The ostensible reason that the customer would ultimately get burdened if any service is taxed is not a good argument any more.
Rather, while the tax net is to be broadened, the tax rate needs to be reduced.
Guest
(Expert) 09 March 2011
On what grounds do you feel that any service, more particularly the service of lawyers, be exempted from service tax, if their is a provision of taxation in the name of service?
As per the proposal of Vishweshwar Rao, if it is proposed to launch a protest now, is it that because lawyers class has now been touched y the law?
In fact, the right time for protest was the initial stage when the Service Tax was actually launched by the Government of India. It must not be forgotten, once a trend is set, that never ends. Every effort to protest now will prov to be merely a waste of energy and time.
Moreover, since the lawyers class is made to maintain and protect the law, they would rather have volunteered themselves to be covered by the service tax even at the initial stage if they could not feel the need to protest against that at the very initial stage.
Furthermore, it is not the lawyers, it is only the common man of the public, who has always to bear the brunt on all the issues of tax in the name of service.
"NIP THE EVIL IN THE BUD" is not the wrong saying.
