It was announced earlier that Service Tax will be levied on AC and First Class Tickets issued in advance i.e., before 1st October, 2012 for travel on or after 1stOctober, 2012 and Railways will not be able to refund the service tax collected. Railway Board have issued the following modifications in respect of these announcements cancelling the service tax on tickets issued prior to 1stOctober, 2012 for journey on or after 1st October, 2012 and allowing the railways to refund service tax on tickets booked on or after 1stOctober, 2012;-
1)Service Tax is not leviable on Tickets issued prior to 1st October, 2012 and hence service tax will not be collected from the passengers on Board by Travelling Ticket Examiners. Service Tax is leviable from 1st day of October, 2012. Service tax will be collected on the Tickets issued / booking made on or after 1stOctober, 2012.
2)In case of cancellation of tickets booked by the passengers on or after 1st October, 2012, the service tax will be refunded by the Railways except for the portion of service tax on the amount of cancellation charges retained by the Railways.
3)Wherever food and refreshment are a part of the total ticket fare, service tax will be levied on the gross amount charged from the passengers towards the ticket at the rate of 3.6% + 0.072% Education Cess + 0.036% Higher Education Cess (Total – 3.708%).
It is clarified that the imposition of Service Tax is done as per the provisions of Finance Bill-2012.
Railways will not retain the Service Tax proceeds with them and will remit the amount of Service Tax collected from the passengers to the Central Government Exchequer as per the procedure.