Service tax

Service tax was a tax levied by the Government of India on services provided or agreed to be provided excluding services covered under the negative list and considering the Place of Provision of Service Rules 2012 and collected as per Point of Taxation Rules 2011 from the person liable to pay service tax.

According to the Service Tax Rules 1994, a person responsible for paying service tax may be either the service provider or the service receiver, or any other individual person made so liable. It was an indirect tax, where the service provider collected the tax on services from the service receiver and then paid it to the Government of India.

Few services were exempt in public interest via Mega Exemption Notification 25/2012-ST as amended up to date and few services are charged service tax at an abated rate as per Notification No. 26/2012-ST as amended up to date.

It was set, more recently, at 15% for transactions that occurred on or after June 1, 2016.

Service tax was in July 2017 replaced by Goods and Services Tax (GST), which subsumed the various types of indirect taxes.