Provisional Assessments Finalisation - Board Wants Quick Action
THE CAG had adversely commented on the large number of Provisional Assessments in Central Excise pending for years together and this matter is also taken up by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
Normally no officer in the department would take the risk of finalizing the provisional assessment - that is the only assessment by them.
The Board has decided that delay in finalization of provisional assessment cases should be reviewed by the Commissioners on monthly basis with reference to number of pendencies and their disposal, issue involved and amount of differential duty in respect of each assessee and should also be reflected in their monthly report.
Board wants all the pending provisional assessment cases to be disposed of within six months.
Board wants that the jurisdictional Commissioner should ensure that normally no provisional assessment case should remain pending beyond 1 year. To convey this, the Board instruction says, "The jurisdictional Commissioner should be ensured that normally no provisional assessment case should remain pending beyond 1 year." So much for clarity in Board instructions - how do you ensure a Commissioner?
Board further desires that for keeping pendency of provisional assessment cases at their minimum level, efforts should be made to encourage the assessee to pay the duty on clearance of goods and go for final assessment.
Who bothers?
In 1998, by Circular No. , dated 19th March 1998, the Board emphatically told the field officers, "All cases of Provisional Assessment must be finalised within a period of 6 months from the date of issue of the order of Provisional Assessment.".
After eighteen years of callous disobedience by the field, Board is telling them the same words. It seems there are provisional assessments pending for more than thirty years!
CBEC Instructions in F.No.238/11/2014-CX-7., Dated March 30, 2016