bangalore the itbpo sector says the government owes the industry over rs 3500 crore in service tax refunds for the past three yearswith the amount continuing to grow the matter is now being taken up by industry bodies nasscom and the confederation of indian industry ciisince 2008 companies have been paying a 103 service tax on input services like rentals leases telecom links repairs and maintenance canteen services hr audits ca charges management consulting couriers and transportation exportoriented units eous are allowed a refund of service tax paid on these input services that directlyindirectly support their output services like exports of softwareservices such refunds are a common practice and are done to ensure that exports are globally competitive but the refunds have not happenedinfosys technologies is said to be owed rs 530 crore mphasis rs 250 crore and wipro rs 200 croremphasis says that in the last quarter it submitted 30 box files each box file comprising of 500 individual invoices so a total of 15000 invoices but the tax authorities rejected the entire lot ganesh murthy cfo mphasis said they are rejecting refund on frivolous grounds they say the documentation is not sufficient the invoices are not issued in the right format or there is no direct corelation between input services and output servicesv balakrishnan cfo infosys technologies said the department is looking for onetoone correlation between input and output services which will never be the case considering the nature of the services consumed locally and exportedin a manufacturing scenario such corelation may be possible but not in software exports he said some input services are clearly linked to output while some are notthe trouble is that there are no guidelines on what kind of input services are eligible for refund against export of softwareservices said k r girish senior partner in law firm bsr cosuresh senapaty cfo wipro technologies said too many rejections were leading to litigation issues are pending in appeal he saidsome suspect that there is a diktat from the top bosses in the tax department not to be generous with refunds now trade bodies are also lobbying to get the refund som mittal president nasscom said the department of indirect taxes is expected to issue documentation guidelines to facilitate quick refundsk ramesh director cii karnataka said the chamber had taken a delegation to meet the chairman of indirect taxes and a quick resolution of the issue is expected