Government orders crackdown on service tax evaders

The government has directed the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the country's nodal agency for gathering, analysing and disseminating information related to suspicious financial transactions, to work with the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) to bring into the net an estimated over 65,000 persons who have not filed service tax returns but have managed to escape the scrutiny of the government so far.

Finance minister P Chidambaram has also asked the DGCEI ''to make available some unique identifier'' to track evaders of both the service tax and central excise duty, according to a report in The Indian Express.

Citing unnamed sources, the report said that the finance minister had questioned the DGCEI in a meeting held last month as to ''why is the Permanent Account Number (PAN) not mandatory for registration under excise department or customs department and why should it not be made mandatory.''

The reason for the query is that in the absence of any 'unique identifier', the intelligence unit has not been able to process a list of 557 defaulters of excise duty handed over to the finance ministry, as the names of these defaulters do not figure in the government's database.

''While running the data through its database, the FIU found that absence of PAN-like unique identifier has ensured that these defaulters leave no trail. The finance minister asked the DGCEI to work towards making available some kind of unique identifier,'' the source said.

As to the list of defaulters handed over to the FIU by the DGCEI, Chidambaram has ordered both the agencies to look into the issue and ''the result of these exercises would be evaluated jointly by the FIU and DGCEI''.