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December 2014

[2014] 36 STR 96 (Tri.-Mum.) Commissioner of Service Tax, Mumbai vs. Diotech India Ltd.

By Puloma Dalal, Jayesh Gogri, Mandar Telang Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
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Non-refundable registration fees for e-commerce forms part of value of taxable services leviable to service tax.

Facts:
The Respondents were in the business of providing website and e-learning in electronic form and were also engaged in trading of consumer goods and branded goods and were registered under the category of online information and database access or retrieval services. The department alleged that the registration fees charged should form part of value of taxable services since the same was non-refundable. The fees were adjusted in the first purchase made by the online buyer and even in case of no purchases by the online user, these fees were not refundable. Since the charges were never declared or shown in returns, extended period of limitation was invoked.

Held:
Since the registration fee was not refundable, it would be added to the gross value of taxable services, leviable to service tax. Since only on scrutiny of records by the department, the issue was noticed, it was a case of suppression of facts with intent to evade service tax and therefore, extended period of limitation was justified.

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