It is a welcome move by the Finance Minister to please the Chartered Accountants / Company Secretaries and Cost Accountants to fulfill their long representation that 'Lawyers are not subjected to service tax when they do similar work on legal matters such as giving opinion, reply to show cause notices etc'. However, Individual Lawyers are spared from the levy of service tax. On the other hand, individual CAs / CS / Cost Accountant are not given similar exclusion from service tax. Further, it is a question how the Department will have control over individual advocates as to whether they render individual practice or partly associated with other advocates
