Availment of cenvat credit

[Guest]

A Certain unit manufacturing excisable goods is having its manufacturing unit at one place and its corporate office at another location (different city). The bills towards certain INPUT services received at both the corporate office and factory are raised in the name of CORPORATE office only. It may please be clarified whether the unit(factory) is eligible to avail the credit of Service Tax paid by the CORPORATE office or not

[Surender Gupta]

For the purpose of claiming cenvat credit, where the captioned service is in the nature of input service, you may take the benefit of Cenvat credit on the bills received in the name of head office provided you follow the prescribed procedures.

[Madhukar N Hiregange]

What Mr. Gupta has stated is correct. It maybe preferable to see if you should take the ISD regiration along with your ST regsitration. Alternatively apply for a centralised registration and indicate all the branches where ST is being expended. For the time being you may endorse the invoices with a rubber stamp as under: The services indicated in this invoice are used for business, HO( address) ....... Signed by the receiving branch. This is similar to the endorsement provided for excisable goods recived at sister units.

[Guest]

In my opinion Input services received at corporate office can be transfered through "Input service distributor Invoice" to your manufacturing unit,after amending in your registration. please refer Input service distributor procedures as per Service tax rules.

AI Summary

Cenvat credit can be claimed for input services billed to the head office if procedural requirements and ISD or registration steps are met. Cenvat credit on input services invoiced to the head office can be claimed by the manufacturing unit if procedural conditions are met: use an Input Service Distributor to transfer credit after amending registrations, obtain centralised registration listing branches where service tax is expended, and retain properly endorsed invoices as supporting documentation.