2012 (10) TMI 490

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.... interest before issue of show cause notice. There is no dispute as regards the liability of the appellant to pay service tax. Appellant is in appeal only against the penalty imposed under Section 76 and Section 78 of the Finance Act, 1994 imposed after commencement of proceedings by issue of show cause notice dated 23-12-2009 i.e. after three and a half years of commencement of investigation. 2. The learned Chartered Accountant on behalf of the appellant submits that from 1-4-2005 onwards, there was confusion as to whether service tax is payable by the receiver or by the provider. He drew my attention to the circular issued by TRU of C.B.E. & C. vide letter F. No. 341/18/2004-TRU (Pt.), dated  17-12-2004 to submit that this wa....

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....d to recovery of tax with interest payable thereon. No penalty should be imposed on such defaulters unless the default is on account of deliberate fraud or a collusion, suppression of facts or wilful mis-statement or contraventions of the provisions of service tax with intent to evade payment of service tax". The only point that has been held against the appellant while  imposing penalty under Section 76 of Finance Act, 1994 is that appellant had  collected the service tax from the customers. The learned Chartered Accountant submitted that they had collected service tax in some cases but not in all cases. However, the learned DR would not categorically say that the service tax had been collected in all cases. Similarly the learned....