First tranche of service tax before July 5

MUMBAI The finance ministry hopes its service tax kitty will swell this year, with all brand ambassadors registering themselves and paying the 12.24% service tax.

Though many others such as John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, Kareena Kapoor and Sushmita Sen are registered with the commissionerate, they did not pay any tax during ’05-06.

Finance ministry officials said that all of them would have to shell out tax in the current financial year, thanks to their inclusion in the tax net. The first quarterly instalment is expected before the July 5 deadline.

The commissionerate is awaiting the response after the ministry asked all brand ambassadors to register from the beginning of the current fiscal, before initiating action. Sources said the commissionerate would start issuing letters to all those who have not registered so far.

Last year, when the commissionerate queried them about service tax payments, a few including Aamir Khan and Naseeruddin Shah had claimed that they were handling such contracts individually, and hence not liable to pay any tax. However, many others had not responded to the query.

Sources said Mr Bachchan and Mr Tendulkar paid tax for all contracts managed by their firms, ABCL (in Mumbai) and WorldTel (in Bangalore) respectively. Tendulkar has now registered himself in Mumbai.