Refund under notification No.41/2007

[ranganath shenoy]

The Notifn. No. 41/2007-ST dated 06-10-2007 as amended at Sl. No.15 of the Schedule ,exempts the services provided by commission agents located outside india and engaged under a contract or agreement or any other docueedment by the exporter in india to act on behalf of the exporter to cause sale of goods exported by him under certain conditions.Now,the refund of service tax is not granted for the reason that exporter have claimed DEPB.

Following conditions are required to be satisfied: (a) the exemption shall be claimed by the exporter of the goods for the specified services received and used by the exporter for export of the said goods; (b) the exemption claimed by the exporter shall be provided by way of refund of service tax paid on the specified services used for export of the said goods; (c) the exporter claiming the exemption has actually paid the service tax on the specified services; (d) no CENVAT credit of service tax paid on the specified services used for export of said goods has been taken under the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004; (e) the said goods have been exported without availing drawback of service tax paid on the specified services under the Customs, Central Excise Duties and Service Tax Drawback Rules, 1995; (f) exemption or refund of service tax paid on the specified services used for export of said goods shall not be claimed except under this notification. There is no condition that exporter should not avail DEPB. Hence, rejection of claim by department is wrong.

AI Summary

Service tax exemption for specified export services requires statutory conditions and does not preclude availing DEPB.
Notification No.41/2007-ST exempts services by commission agents outside India for exporters subject to conditions: exporter must claim exemption for specified services used for export, seek refund of service tax actually paid, not take CENVAT credit on those services, export goods without availing service-tax drawback, and claim exemption or refund only under the notification. The notification contains no prohibition against availing DEPB, so rejection based solely on DEPB is unsupported.