Central Excise and Service Tax Officers fail in expanding base, registration, scrutiny - CAG
THE CAG conducted a performance audit on working of Commissionerates, Divisions and Ranges on
++ Measures to broaden the service tax base;
++ Monitoring mechanism for registration of assessees;
++ Receipt and scrutiny of returns;
++ Internal audit process; and
++ Issue of show cause notices
Their sample comprised 46 Commissionerates, 95 Divisions and 204 Ranges.
Some of the findings from the Report released yesterday:
++ 17 out of 35 Commissionerates informed that they had not carried out the procedures as prescribed by DGST in its action plan for broadening the tax base.
++ CAG had earlier identified 1959 service providers who were not registered. Department could only register 151 out of them.
++ CAG found delays in issuing registration certificates and in acceptance of surrender certificates.
++ Detailed scrutiny of Central Excise and Service Tax Returns were being done only in very few ranges or divisions.
++ The work of maintenance of assessee master file had not been completed by the audit wings of most of the Commissionerates.
++ In ten Commissionerates, non-mandatory units were audited at the cost of mandatory units.
++ There was no centralised record of all the cases, which required issue of Show Cause Notices.