Government withdraws exemption to goods transport by Rail?
THE Government has rescinded Notification No. 28/2009-Service Tax, dated the 31 st August, 2009, except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such rescission.
Notification No. 28/2009 exempted several items like postal mail bags, parcels, etc ,. in relation to transport of goods by rail.
But if you remember, transport of all goods by rail was exempted by Notification No. 33/2009 dated 1 st September, 2009. And so Notification No. 28/2009 became irrelevant after issue of Notification No. 33/2009 and so should have been rescinded on 1 st September itself. Obviously the government forgot to rescind it and has now done it. Anyway there is no damage done as the existence of this notification could not cause any damage.
But the surprising fact is the notification states, “except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such rescission”. What could be done and what could have been omitted to be done with a dead notification? This is a phrase usually used while rescinding notifications and as usual they applied the formula here too.
Rescinding a dead notification helps in clearing the weeds and perhaps avoiding a future confusion or even litigation.
Notification No. : Dated 9th September, 2009