Telcos seek service tax waiver on AGR dues

Telecom operators’ body COAI has approached the finance ministry seeking a waiver of service tax on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to be paid to the government.

The telecom operators have been paying service tax and then GST under the reverse charge mechanism (RCM) on licence fees (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC) made to the Department of Telecom for the period starting April 1, 2016.

The industry paid around Rs 6,600 crore between April 2016 to March 2017 in cash to discharge its output service tax liability, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in a letter to the ministry dated July 17.