Service Tax - VCES - The Rejection Starts
THE payment of the second instalment of 50% under the VCES has to be made by 30th June 2014, but before that department is busy trying to reject the VCES declarations and go for the Show Cause Notice route.
In a case in Delhi High Court last week, the Assistant Commissioner/designated authority rejected the VCES application of the applicant on the ground that a dispute was pending before the CESTAT.
The facts are: the assessee claimed exemption under vocational training for the period 10.9.2004 to 27.2.2010 - which matter is in dispute before the Tribunal. After 1.3.2010, the assessee was paying Service Tax and there is no dispute about the taxability during this period. But due to some reasons, the assessee could not pay the tax from 1.4.2012 to 31.12.2012, which they now volunteered to pay under VCES. But the Assistant Commissioner was not prepared to allow this because there was a pending dispute!
The High Court could easily understand the situation and held that there was no dispute pending on the taxability during this period and the applicant was eligible for the benefits of VCES.
In December 2013, the Finance Minister clearing the apprehensions about rejection of declaration stated that the effort is to accept the declaration, but not to reject it. He said instructions were given to field formations to accept the declarations and collect taxes and not to reject the declarations by giving any wider interpretation to the Section 106 of FA.
In any case, each Central Excise Authority is an independent Authority by himself and he has no respect for the law, court, Board, Finance Minister or any other Authority. But for some strange reason, he has a lot of respect for lawyers in filling whose pockets he keeps himself incessantly busy. After all who else benefits from all these silly illegal activities, which stop the revenue flow to the Government. Can you call these officers revenue officers? They are a threat to Revenue!