Service tax payable on Gross Amount of Commission

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The appellant/assessee provided services of Authorized Service Station and Business Auxiliary Services. They had acted as agent for promoting vehicle loans for which the Bank paid them commission. Out of the commission paid by the Bank, they were in fact paying some amount to the loan seekers as an incentive for taking the loan through them. While paying service tax for amounts received as commission, the appellant deducted the amounts paid to customers from the amount received from the bank and paid service tax only on the remaining portion of the commission. The Revenue made out a case that they should have paid tax on the full amount received from the bank and issued a show cause notice to the appellant demanding tax which was short paid.

Held: We are of the view that the amount paid by the bank for the services rendered by the appellant and reflected as receipts in the books of accounts of the appellant, should be subjected to service tax and therefore, the orders passed by the lower authorities is maintainable and thus appeal filed by the appellant is rejected.