Service Tax Return Due Date: Ex-Tension
IT was Tension with a Capital T. Worried assessees and consultants were constantly calling us to know whether the due date for filing the Service Tax return for the period from 1st October 2012 to 31st March 2013, has been extended or not. There is a temporary collective sigh of relief all over the country. All the threatening flashes in the ACES website that last date is 31st August and that there would be penalty for late filing are withdrawn. We knew all along that the Board had no option but to extend the last date; however we kept on requesting the Board to do the needful - and we are grateful they obliged by extending the date to September, 10, 2013.
It needs mention that while exercising the powers conferred by rule 7(4) of the STR, 1994, the Board has mentioned the following as the ‘circumstances of a special nature, which have given rise to this extension of time' -
“Difficulties have been faced by assessees in uploading the offline utilities”.
This would mean that the Board has not yet been briefed about the difficulties being faced by assessees in filing the ST-3 returns online - and quite possibly when they would be made aware we can all have another extension!
The other day, a Service Tax Commissioner disarmingly confessed that he doesn't know anything about ACES, but he was happy that the Income Tax Commissioners are no better; not one of the Income Tax Commissioners he called up was able to help him with his missing TDS credits and some huge demands raised against him!
If Commissioners don't understand the e-returns, how do they expect ordinary assessees to file them?
Every month, the Chairmen of the Boards and all Commissioners should be made to file a return of an assessee - then they will understand the difficulties and perhaps once in six months, the MoS and once in a year the Finance Minister should file the return of a random assessee.
CBEC Order No. 4/2013-Service Tax, Dated: August 30, 2013