chennai sending a stern message to tax offenders union finance minister p chidambaram today said government was having enough information on economic wrongdoers and warned them of tough action including arrest government has to send a message a stern message that such violations cannot go unpunished therefore we have arrested them he said adding that ten persons had been arrested recently for alleged service tax default across the country the government would also very closely focus on sectors prone to chronic service tax evasion like consultancy it and real estate he said chidambaram said he had noticed chronic tax evasion in various cities for example in chennai in contract service maintenance and repair service and sectors like consultancy it real estate mining transport operators advertisement manpower and recruitment and security services speaking at an interactive meet on trade and industry service associations and chambers of commerce and industry on voluntary compliance encouragement scheme vces he said the power of arrest was used only in cases where an individual had collected rs 50 lakh and above and does not deposit it in government account tell me should such a person be shown any sympathy the money is not a small amount he is keeping the money and using it it is an interest free loan from the government he said a great deal of information was being shared among government departments with the use of pan number and other unique numbers we have 360 degree profiles of worst economic offenders we have dossiers on the worst economic offenders because of limitations in the department we cannot reach to every offender that does not mean we do not know that there are no offenders he said ultimately we will reach the offenders but i do not want any one of you to be offenders i want you all to be honest citizens honest tax payers we are here to help you whenever i have been incharge of this department we have been successful in raising revenues for the government he said stating that 17 lakh people had voluntarily registered for filing their service taxes he said only seven lakh actually pay their taxes so ten lakhs people do not pay therefore we have said in the budget that we will reach out to these 10 lakhs we will give them an opportunity a fair opportunity a generous package and let them come forward at the end of this exercise i hope a vast majority of the 17 lakh will become tax payers he said vces had been introduced with effect from may 10 2013 as a onetime amnesty scheme for paying service tax dues for the period october 1 2007 to december 31 2012 without interest and penalty