Remittance of service tax under Central Excise account head
A Netizen writes in:
For the last two days, TIOL has been publishing the anomaly with regard to change of account heads while remitting service tax. The directions of the Board under Circular No. (ST) dated 20/05/2003 are not honoured in our case.
The situation is as follows:
We have remitted Service tax and interest on the same, amounting to Rs. 12 lakhs under Central Excise Major Head 0038 instead of Service Tax Major Head 0044. The mistake was found out after the close of the Financial year and therefore, we requested the e-Pay & Accounts Officer, Chennai for necessary corrections, under advise from the Office of the Commissioner of Central Excise and Service Tax.
The Pay& Accounts officer has informed back that the interchange between 0038 -Union Excise Duties and 0044 - Service Tax cannot be done.
We took up the matter further with the Pay and Accounts Office, Mumbai, based on CBEC circular No, dated 20/5/2003, wherein the procedure for rectification is described.
The Mumbai Pay & Accounts Office has advised us to take up the matter through the Commissioner of Service tax, which was also done.
Of late, we are informed by the Jurisdictional Range officer that the issue was taken up with e-PAO, Chennai, by the Commissioner of Central Excise and the E-PAO had intimated that no corrections could be made by e-PAO as changes in the account code were to be done only within the same Major Head ie. Within 0038-UED or 0044-Service Tax and not between the two as per the existing accounting provisions.
The questions that whirl around us are:
1. Is this the law of the land?
2. Is it the intention of the CBEC circular?
3. Are we supposed to make another payment under the service tax head?
4. Whether interest has to be paid once again for the delay in payment till date?
5. Whether the amount already paid will be refunded, disregarding the time bar of one year for refund?
6. Is there any impact of Section78A of Finance Act, 1994 in this regard?
This is for sharing our concern with TIOL.
Will the Board clarify?