What is wrong with ACES?
THIS is what CBEC proclaims about ACES.
Automation of Central Excise and Service Tax (ACES) is the e-governance initiative by Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). It is one of the Mission Mode Projects (MMP) of the Govt. of India under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). It is a software application which aims at improving tax-payer services, transparency, accountability and efficiency in the indirect tax administration in India. This application is a web-based & workflow-based system that has automated all major procedures in Central Excise and Service Tax.
In the post-independent era of Indirect Tax administration in India, ACES is the most significant IT-based initiative undertaken that has transformed the way about 18.20 lakh indirect taxpayers transact their business with the department of Central Excise and Service Tax. Being an innovative reform initiative in the indirect tax department, ACES had benefited members of trade, industry and commerce.
The ACES application has resulted in a major change in the way the Central Excise and Service Tax field formations conduct their regular business vis-a-vis the Trade & Industry. e-filing and e-processing of documents has started replacing manual filing and handling of paper documents.
The main purpose of the initiative was to re-engineer the business processes and transform the existing tax administration into a modern, efficient and transparent system. Its objective was to strike an optimal balance between trade facilitation and enforcement and to promote a culture of voluntary compliance. It aims at reducing physical interface of the business community with the departmental officers and to provide a transparent and paper-less business environment with improved taxpayer services delivered through an automated process.
In the department, most of the officers do not know how to use ACES and so they don't use it. The assessees have no choice; they have to use it, at least to file their returns. Assessees with unlimited patience have accepted government incompetence as a way of life and many have stopped even complaining, as they find that complaints don't solve the problems. The same hardware, the same software and the same officers for too long a time have rusted ACES. Perhaps ACES has to be reinvented and re-engineered. Till then instead of ease of doing business, it is going to be one hell of doing business.