GST set to treat elephant owners like taxi operators

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What elephant lovers have failed to achieve, Goods and Services Tax might. Under the GST regime, elephant owners will be brought within the service tax net making elephant rentals less remunerative. Hope is, the taxation would take out the incentive for overworking captive elephants. A temple or a devaswom or anyone in possession of elephants will be treated just like a rent-a-cab operator or a real estate agent or an event manager. Any individual, or entity, who rents out elephants for commercial purposes will be considered ‘service providers’ under GST, will be obliged to pay a service tax.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs has long before issued a preparatory note to all the devaswom boards. The note was the mandatory step towards including elephant owners within the service tax net. The boards have been asked to urgently submit the ‘hire charges’ of various types of elephants during the last three years. The CBEC note was sent to individual elephant owners, too, in the state. Of the 700-odd captive elephants in the state, 225 are with the devaswoms and the rest with private owners. “It is true that we have received an order asking us to submit certain details,” said the president of a Devaswom in North Kerala.

“We are not clear about what is happening but we know that such a thing will seriously affect the functioning of temples,” he said. He has another big fear. “Why have they asked us to submit details of three years? Are they planning to impose the tax in a retrospective manner,” he asks. A hugely popular elephant is rented out for over Rs 50,000-75,000 a day. It is unofficially estimated that the ‘elephant-for-hire economy’ is worth Rs 200 crore or more annually.