Voice chatting to be taxed in India?

[marulez]

Question: When does a voice chat on the Internet become a telephone call?
Answer: When the taxman comes calling.

Consumer Internet giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, which have been offering telephony-like facilities through their messenger software, may soon come into the service tax net, industry sources say.

Skype, an Internet voice call service owned by online auctioneer eBay, and portals Rediff.com, Google, MSN and Yahoo, which have not been paying any levies for providing chats resembling long-distance telephony, provide their service for free. Once required to pay taxes in India, their service may no longer be available for free.

Source

[abhijit_reddevil]

Myself use Skype a lot to talk to relatives abroad. So this service will not be free sometime later?

[DeSmOnD dAvId]

I feel this is pure crap. They cannot tax like that, why can't we be free to communicate with whoever we wish to. It would just like using my landline.

[Charan]

Cr@p . Bull $hit . PC to PC should be free .

[fun2sh]

Our Indian Government Is Big Bullshit Crap. Now They Should Even Tax On Talkin

[hailgautam]

Originally Posted by DeSmOnD dAvId

I feel this is pure crap. They cannot tax like that, why can't we be free to communicate with whoever we wish to. It would just like using my landline.

Government has the Sovereign right to tax any service being provided by any person if it is provided in the Service Tax Laws. It is similar to Excise Duty which is paid on manufacture of many goods - only here the tax is on the service.

Voice Communication is one of the services that is covered in the Service Tax ambit and it is perfectly legal for the government to tax it.

However the only roadblock has been the fact that these service providers are not domiciled in India and not registered to operate and therefore have been avoiding paying any tax, which is now going to change.

Most likely government is going to tax only PC to Phone Calls for which the service providers charge and not he PC to PC calls which are currently free.

The Logic is that PC-Phone call is just like any other Phone call that you make and as you pay for the PC-Phone Call similar to Phone-Phone call they tax it.

[ranjan2001]

Next would be these forums & blogs posting....................................each post will be charged 12.24% service tax.............................................we are really becoming DEMOCRATIC.
Finance minister must be insane to even think about this.

[hailgautam]

Originally Posted by ranjan2001

Next would be these forums & blogs posting....................................each post will be charged 12.24% service tax.............................................we are really becoming DEMOCRATIC.
Finance minister must be insane to even think about this.

There are 3 basic things that are required for a service to be taxed:

1. The service is provided India
2. The service is taxable legally
3. THE Recipient of the Service is making payment for the service.

Therefore as long as you are not paying anything you don't have to pay any tax...

or yes..... you can pay 12.36% (not 12.24% any more) of 0 (zero) which is again 0 (zero, Sunno, onda)

[mustang]

It is only to be taxed in India or in other countries?If it is only in India then it would be wrong decision for Indian users,If they starts tax on voice chatting then in future they will be starts tax on Email.

[ranjan2001]

Originally Posted by hailgautam

There are 3 basic things that are required for a service to be taxed:

1. The service is provided India
2. The service is taxable legally
3. THE Recipient of the Service is making payment for the service.

Therefore as long as you are not paying anything you don't have to pay any tax...

or yes..... you can pay 12.36% (not 12.24% any more) of 0 (zero) which is again 0 (zero, Sunno, onda)

When in india nothing is legaly required, we get goverments who want to reserve quota in education inspite high court then supreme court turning it down...................so if they amend the law to make this as legal service (forums offers a user to user service) then next would be that these forums cannot be run free.....................they should be paid........................hence pay service tax.

Any thing can happen in this country ...........................though it will be opposed majorly.

How does this topic came up to goverment thoughts...................when did computer to computer voice chatting became a service? How can they double tax it, we alreday pay service tax on internet bandwidth.....................dont we???? now if I email or chat or do any posting on the forums using that bandwidth its my business.

[kumarmohit]

But are we not already paying service tax for net!!!

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

Originally Posted by kumarmohit

But are we not already paying service tax for net!!!

Plus , we already are Paying for Internet Service and VoIP is just like any normal data transfer .

[girish_AMD]

Govt is thinking that we are fools and we will pay what ever they ask for as rightly said we are paying the service tax for Internet. So why again a service tax for voice calls. This is a total crap.

[hailgautam]

Originally Posted by ranjan2001

When in india nothing is legaly required, we get goverments who want to reserve quota in education inspite high court then supreme court turning it down...................so if they amend the law to make this as legal service (forums offers a user to user service) then next would be that these forums cannot be run free.....................they should be paid........................hence pay service tax.

Any thing can happen in this country ...........................though it will be opposed majorly.

How does this topic came up to goverment thoughts...................when did computer to computer voice chatting became a service? How can they double tax it, we alreday pay service tax on internet bandwidth.....................dont we???? now if I email or chat or do any posting on the forums using that bandwidth its my business.

First about the Quotas: I am not in favor of the quotas but the fact is that the Netas are trying to do which will fetch them votes. nearly 90% of the people voting in the general elections are those who are eligible for these quotas. The so called upper cast/ educated people do not matter to them since they would not vote. Therefore they will do what it takes them to be in power.

All the laws are made taking into consideration people of the land. when you do not matter you will not be considered for the laws when they are made.

Now about the Service Tax:
Government is not trying to tax PC-PC calls . They will never be taxed coz they can not be taxed.

Government however is trying to tax the PC-Phone Calls. Infact these services are already taxed.

But due to the fact that we do not use such services so we do not know.

Did you ever heard of Net2Phone calling cards that are available, even Satyam & Tata Indicom got similar calling cards. These companies are registered in India and pay service tax; however Yahoo & Skype are not registered in India and do not pay any taxes while they do earn revenues from here.

Eg: I had bought $10 worth of Talk time from Yahoo to call to US coz it would cost me $0.01 per minute. Should I had to bought the same from Indian Companies I would have paid Service Tax, But with Yahoo I did not pay service tax.

Such Services are already taxed in other countries and India would be one of the last countries to even thinking of taxing the same. As I said government gets these ideas from China, US and other developed countries where such services are taxed since long.

Indian Government is very soft on these companies, if it were China they would have blacklisted the Yahoo or Skype by now and would have blocked all types of content from these companies. And you would not have even the chance to crib as well. India is a very lenient country in that regard. Infact if it were in china the forum would have been blocked by now for discussing such a matter.

In India we have been using these services free till now, and will be using most of it as well.

Originally Posted by Zeeshan Quireshi

Plus , we already are Paying for Internet Service and VoIP is just like any normal data transfer .

All these are different services and would be taxed as such. So pay. There aint anything as a free lunch. I will again emphasis that it is not VoIP that is being taxed now - it is PC-Phone Calls - for which you pay a price. If you use yahoo to speak to someone in US over PC-PC it will not be taxed coz you do not pay anything for it.

Let me give you an example: If you pay Rs. 100 for any service Rs. 12.36 will be the service tax and you have to pay Rs. 112.36. But when you pay Rs 0.00 there you can not have any service tax. Simple isn't it?

Originally Posted by girish_AMD

Govt is thinking that we are fools and we will pay what ever they ask for as rightly said we are paying the service tax for Internet. So why again a service tax for voice calls. This is a total crap.

Don't be a fool; don't pay anything. You will not get that service. May be a Crap. But that is how it is. Do what ever you want to do... if you can.

---------------------------------

Finally one thing I want to ask..what is your problem with paying taxes?

Let us not go into the discussion as how they are used ...coz I know most of it is being eaten by our Netas.

However as a responsible, civilized citizen we should pay taxes. Because these taxes are going to be used for our own good. As I had mentioned before government has the authority to tax these services and the same has been validated in the Apex Court (Supreme Court).

I know it pinches to pay any tax, but what can we do... crib!?!

I guess that is what we are doing.....

so why am I writing these long posts I wonder!?!

[pushkaraj]

@hailgautam, very well written.

[ssdivisiongermany1933]

hell

[ThinkFree]

Read about that in newspaper. Not a good news at all though I don't use such services.

[entrana]

think of it this way
tax = 12%
price = 0
total = 0+0*12
=0
so we pay 0 rupees there i think thats logical enough now they cant charge us even with 10k% vat

[hailgautam]

Net telephony firms under tax scanner

Companies such as Skype, Yahoo, MSN, Net2Phone and Google are facing government scrutiny on payment of service tax through the provision of illegal Internet telephony services.

The director general, Central Excise Intelligence, has written to the ISP Association of India (ISPAI), directing it to furnish the local addresses and overseas offices of such Internet telephony service providers with details of revenues and major service receivers.

The move follows a complaint lodged by ISPAI with finance minister, P Chidambaram’s office and earlier with the DoT, alleging that these and some other international companies were providing Internet telephony services in India without a proper licence.

ISPAI had alleged that an ISP licence or a unified access services licence (UASL) is required to provide Internet telephony, which these firms do not possess.

This means that the alleged offenders neither pay service tax (as there is no billing for such calls in India), or the 6% AGR or even the 0.75% of AGR to be paid as ADC.

ISPAI had also pointed out that these companies were also violating the security norms governing telecom licences. UASL and ISP licences have to ensure monitoring and surveillance, especially where international voice calls are involved. This gained importance after several terrorist attacks/bomb blasts were linked to calls made to and from destinations outside India.

ISPs want a level playing field as these international service providers carry a superior cost structure that allows them to charge a fraction of the tariffs offered by licensed providers.

Despite the fact that ILD tariffs have seen a major reduction in the last five years, it is obvious that licensed operators cannot compete with any company that can provide the same service without any legal or financial obligations.

"Global companies must follow the law of the land and not deprive the exchequer of legitimate revenue or place the country under additional security risks," says president, ISPAI, Rajesh Chharia.

When contacted, a Google spokesperson declined to comment. However, these companies often argue that such services are provided by their global platform and should not be regulated in India.

The government will find it hard to ignore both the legitimate demands for level playing field as well as allegations of security breach, considering the global climate of frequent terror attacks.

[azzu]

Gautam anna intha patha thread ni yenduku LIVE™ chesavu

[hailgautam]

news related kada.

[NucleusKore]

When a service is free (Rs. 0.00) any tax which will be a percentage of that will also cease to exist