MUMBAI: The directorate general of service tax and the local central excise office has issued an advertisement in all publications today, urging cable operators to pay the five per cent service tax in the interest of the nation and "for their own good". 

Meanwhile, business daily reports indicate that there is a strong probability that the Centre may increase service taxes from five to eight per cent in Budget 2003-4.
 

The department, in its ad, says that those who provide taxable services have to be mandatorily registered with the jurisdictional central excise department and pay the service tax on the amount realised for the services rendered.

The ad says that service tax is recoverable from the customers of the service providers - the TV viewers in this case. It claims that the tax procedure has been simplified to ensure that there is no harrassment to the service provider.

Cable operators can register by filing the simple ST-1 form which can be downloaded from the website www.cbec.gov.in. The tax has to be paid in authorised banks by the 25th day of the following month. Individual service providers, partnership firms, proprietorship firms can pay tax on quarterly basis by 25 January, April, July and October. 

Half yearly returns can be filed by 25 April for the half year ending March and 25 October for the half year ending September.

It is important to note that the service tax is payable only on the amount received by the service provider for the services rendered.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya had earlier demanded that the MSOs and the cable operators must disclose the details of the previous three years' entertainment tax, service tax, income tax collected and paid by them. Somaiya has alleged that cable operators and MSOs don't give receipts to consumers. He says less than 400 cable operators in Mumbai were registered with the service tax department which falls under the preview of the Excise department.