Discharge of Service Tax Liability before grant of registration Certificate.

[Chandan Garg]

Sir/Ma'am,

We are a private limited company located in Delhi. We have been availing GTA service to brings our goods from all over India to our storage place in Delhi. Since, GTA service falls under reverse charge mechanism, we have applied for ST registration within the specified time of 30 days from the date of liability.

We have applied for centralised registration. Now, my query is that since we have not received our registration certificate nor our registration number is active on cbec-easiest portal, can we discharge our service tax liability using application number generated by ACES? If the RC is not granted to us even after completion of March, 15, do we need to file ST return for Oct-March, 2015.

[Rajagopalan Ranganathan]

Sir,

Sub-rule 5 of rule 4 of Service Tax Rules, 1994 stipulates that the Superintendent of Central Excise shall after due verification of the application formor an intimation under sub-rule (5 A), as the case may be, grant a certificate of registration in Form ST-2within seven days from the date of receipt of the application or the intimation. If the registration certificate is not granted within the said period, the registration applied for shall be deemed to have been granted.

If you file your application in Form ST-1 through ACES web site the acknowledgement issued by the web site will contain the registration Number to be granted. You can use this number for payment of service tax. If your pay service tax manually then you mention that "Registration applied for" or New Registration". However, since entire system is computerised, the amount paid by you will be accepted by the system only if you quote the registration number.

[Chandan Garg]

Thank you for reply sir.

According to the ACES, the rule of 7 day registration is not applicable in case of centralized registration as it is granted by Commissioner and not by Superintendent. No time has been specified for Centralized Registration.

[Mahir S]

Sir,

The registration in case of centralized registration would be granted by the Commissioner of Central Excise having jurisdiction over the centralized premises. The registration formality at the department’s end takes a little longer than the period stated above and the concept of deemed registration need not apply here.

Till the date of communication of granting of centralized registration, the assessee should continue to make service tax payment to the existing jurisdictional office and follow procedure as per law for each of the premises/branches regularly.

Normally 15-20 days are required to issue the ST reg Certificate under the Centralized Reg, as compared to 1-2 days for single premised registration. Further, there may also be chances that various documents and undertaking required for such registration are not completely provided to the department.

You may contact the concerned department or write a letter to the department for early issuance of the registration.

AI Summary

Registration acknowledgement number enables discharge of reverse charge service tax pending formal centralised registration certificate. Where reverse charge liability arises and a registration application is filed, the ACES acknowledgement normally contains the registration number to be granted and can be used to discharge service tax pending the formal certificate. The seven day deemed registration rule applicable to superintendent granted registrations may not apply to centralised registrations granted by the Commissioner, which typically take longer; until formal centralised registration is communicated, taxpayers should continue payments to the existing jurisdictional office and follow applicable procedures.