The government will come out in few days with revised concept paper on 'negative list' for service tax -- meaning services which are not mentioned in the list would be taxed under the proposed GST regime.
 
"The revised concept paper (on negative list of services) is ready and you should see this paper this week," Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, V K Garg, said while addressing a national conference on service tax.
 
Currently, only limited number of services come under the tax net. The government proposes to tax most of the services under the Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime.
 
Under the new regime, all services which are not mentioned in the negative list, would be taxed.  Garg further said that the government will be coming out with scheme, probably by next month, for electronic transfer of service tax and drawback credit to exporters.
     
Earlier, on August 29, the finance ministry has come out with a concept paper in which it has listed 27 services, which it wanted to keep outside the service tax net.
     
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in 2011-12 Budget suggested a public debate on issues concerning service tax to help the government finalise its approach to GST.
     
Mukherjee had said that many experts have argued that it would be desirable to tax services based on small negative list, so that many untapped sectors could be brought under the tax net.
 
"Such an approach will be conductive for a nationwide GST," he had said.
 
The GST would subsume most of the indirect taxes like excise duty and service tax at the central level and VAT on the state front, besides local levies.
     
A Constitution Amendment Bill is pending in Parliament which seeks to pave the way for introduction of GST. 
PTI