Great job! Bangalore Service Tax
The Bangalore Service Tax Commissionerate has launched a new impressive interactive web site. Yesterday DDT carried a circular from the Board directing the field to facilitate refund claimants to see the status of their claims online. And today we find that the Bangalore Service Tax Commissionerate has already done it! The Bangalore web site, apart from the usual rules and Acts, has some very interesting useful features:-
1.Check your refund claim status online
2.You can even make complaints on line
3.Personal hearing schedule is given akin to a cause list - (Right now this link seems to be not working)
4.The forms like ST1, ST3 and returns can be filled and downloaded. Even the GAR 7 can be filled in the net.
5.The site, at a click will tell you where your bank is, where your Service Tax offices are, your accounting codes, etc.
6.They have also started a Discussion and Information forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stbangalore for a stimulating exchange of Service Tax ideas.
And the remarkable feature of this remarkable website is that it has been done totally in-house without any expenditure to the Government. The Government still runs because there is someone somewhere strongly believing that he has to do something for the government which has given him status, salary and a secured job.
But the problem with government sites is that they wither away faster than yesterday's news. Updating is rarely done after the initial euphoria. There are any number of departmental web sites which are vast graveyards. We hope that the Bangalore experiment is successful and will be sustained.
As of now it seems to be in efficient hands. I called up the webmaster to inform him that accounting code for education cess was not mentioned in his site. Within five minutes I got a call that it has since been uploaded. I have never seen faster updating by any site and coming from government that is faster than speed of light.
Have a look at http://servicetaxbangalore.gov.in