TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
Procedure for electronic filing of Central Excise and Service Tax returns and for electronic payment of excise duty and service tax.
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....nancial year. Attention is also invited to Notifications No. 21/2011-Central Excise(NT) & 22/2011-Central Excise (NT) both dated 14.09.2011 and No. 43/2011-ST dated 25.08.2011 prescribing mandatory electronic filing of Central Excise and Service Tax returns 2. DG (Systems) has prepared comprehensive instructions outlining the procedure for electronic filing of Central Excise duty and Service Tax returns and electronic payment of taxes under ACES. The same is annexed. The said instructions outline the registration process for new assessees, existing assessees, non-assessees and for Large Taxpayers Unit assessees, steps for preparing and filing of return, use of XML Schema for filing dealer's return, procedure for obtaining acknowledgement of e-filed return, procedure for e-payment etc. It is requested to sensitize the concerned officers as well as the trade and industry regarding the said instructions. 3. As a large number of taxpayers would be required to file Central Excise and Service Tax return electronically, it is requested that the trade and industry may be provided all assistance so as to ....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....nts III. Benefits to the Assessees 1. Reduce Physical Interface with the Department 2. Save Time 3. Reduce Paper Work 4. Online Registration and Amendment of Registration Details 5. Electronic filing of all documents such as applications for registration, returns [On-line and off-line downloadable versions of ER 1,2,3,4,5,,6,7,8,Dealer Return, and ST3], claims, permissions and intimations; provisional assessment request, export-related documents, refund request 6. System-generated E-Acknowledgement 7. Online tracking of the status of selected documents 8. Online view facility to see selected documents 9. Internal messaging system on business-related matters IV. Registration Process: To transact business on ACES a user has to first register himself/herself with ACES through a process called "Registration with ACES", This registration is not a statutory registration as envisaged in Acts/Rules governing Central Excise and Service Tax but helps the application in recognizing the bonafide users. Described below are steps for taking registration by a new assessee, existing assessee, non-assessee and a Large Tax Payer Unit (LTU). (a) New Assessee 1. The user needs to....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....eived within a period of 15 days, the registration application will be rejected by the department as incomplete. After the approval for issuance of a Registration Certificate is given by the competent authority, a message to this effect is sent to the assessees electronically. In case of Central Excise, the Registration Certificate is issued by the AC/DC, after due processing, and a message to this effect is sent to the assessees electronically. Thereafter, the range Officer carries out physical verification of the declared premises and verifies the documents. A message regarding physical verification is sent electronically. The assessee can view and take a print-out of this. 9. Depending on the option chosen by the assessee, the signed copy of the RC can be sent by post or can be collected by assessee in person. 10. While submitting registration form, if the assessee makes a mistake in choosing a wrong jurisdiction (Commissionerate/Division/ Range), ACES provides a facility to the Superintendent (in case of Service Tax) and to the AC/DC (in case of Central Excise) to forward the application to the correct jurisdictional officer to issue registration and a message to....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
..... This category of registration is given in ACES to any individual, firm or company which requires to transact with the Central Excise or Service Tax Department, though not an assessee such as (a) merchant exporter, (b) co-noticee, (c) refund applicant, (d) persons who have failed to obtain CE/ST registration as required under the law and against whom the Department has initiated proceedings and (e) persons who are required to tender any payment under CE/ST Act /Rules. The Non- assessees are not required to file any tax returns. 2. Where such persons desire to seek non-assessee registration they follow same steps as in case of new assessee except that while choosing the registration form in step (vii) they have to choose and fill in the Non-assessee form. 3. In case the assessee is taking such registration for claiming any refund or rebate it is mandatory to furnish his/her valid PAN. 4. A Non-assessee registration can also be done by the designated officer of the Commissionerate, on behalf of the non-assessee. (d) Large Tax Payer Unit (LTU) Assessee/Client 1. The consent form will have to be submitted manually by the New LTU assessees to the jurisdictional LTU offi....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ecting the „File Return" option under RET module after logging into the ACES. (ii) All validations are thrown up during the preparation of the return in this mode and the status of the return filed using the online mode is instantaneously shown by ACES. (iii) Returns can also be prepared and filed off-line. Assessee downloads the Offline return preparation utility available at http://www.aces.gov.in (Under Download) (iv) Prepares the return offline using this utility. The return preparation utility contains preliminary validations which are thrown up by the utility from time to time. (V) Assessee logs in using the User ID and password. (vi) Selects RET from the main menu and uploads the return. Instructions for using the offline utilities are given in detail in the Help section, under „Download" link and assessees are advised to follow them. (vii) Returns uploaded through this procedure are validated by the ACES before acceptance into the system which may take up to one business day. Assessee can track the status of the return by selecting the appropriate option in the RET sub menu. The status will appear as “uploaded" meaning under process by ACES....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....traints as: Elements and attributes that must/may be included, and their permitted structure The structure as specified by regular expression syntax Similar facilities are available for ER 1 returns. Instructions for using the schema are given in detail in the Help section, under ,,Download" link. Assessees are advised to follow them. d. Filing of Returns and other documents through the ACES Certified Facilitation Centres (CFCs) CBEC has entered into MOUS with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) for setting up ACES Certified Facilitation Centers (CFCs). Based on this, several CFCs have been set up across India, details of which are available under the CFC link in ACES website (http://aces.gov.in/CFC.jsp)These CFCs provide a host of services to the assessees such as digitization of paper documents like returns etc. and uploading the same to ACES on payment of charges, upper limit of which has been prescribed in the MOUS and available in the website, mentioned above. For this purpose, assessees are required to write to the department a....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....FILED†or “REJECTED" and they denote as follows: • UPLOADED denotes that return is uploaded and under processing (assessees are advised to view the status after the end of a business day). FILED denotes that uploaded return is accepted by system. REJECTED denotes that return is rejected due to errors. (The assessees are required to correct the return and upload it again.) 4. There is no provision in ACES application to allow assessees to make corrections in the Central Excise returns filed by them. Once the return is accepted by the system as successfully "filed", no modification can be made by the assessee. However, if the return is rejected, the assessee can correct the errors and upload it again. The assessees are, therefore, advised to take utmost care while filing the returns. However, in case of Service tax, the assessee can revise the return within a period of 90 days from the date of filing their original return. f. Acknowledgement of E-Filing of the return In the case of a Central Excise or Service Tax return filed on-line, ACES application software acknowledges it by displaying an Acknowledgement message. A unique document reference num....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... In terms of Notification No 04/2010-Central Excise (N.T.) dated the 19th February, 2010, an assessee, who has paid total duty of rupees ten lakhs or more including the amount of duty paid by utilization of CENVAT credit in the preceding financial year, is required to deposit the duty electronically through internet banking under sub-rule (1) of Rule 8 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002. 2. Similarly, in terms of Notification No. 01/2010 - Service Tax dated the 19th February, 2010, an assessee who has paid a total Service Tax of rupees ten lakhs or more including the amount paid by utilization of CENVAT credit, in the preceding financial year, is required to deposit the service Tax liable to be paid by him electronically, through internet banking under sub-rule (2) of Rule 6 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994. 3. For e-payment, assessees should open a net banking account with one of the authorized banks (currently there are 28 banks, list of which is available on the EASIEST (Electronic Accounting System in Excise and service Tax) website of CBEC, maintained by NSDL (https://cbec.nsdl.com/EST/). Payment through ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank can be done by assesses f....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....en filed with the department. A return will be considered as filed, when the same is successfully accepted by the application as "Filed" and the relevant date for determining the date of filing of return will be the date of uploading of such successfully "filed†returns. In case a return is “rejected†by the application, the date of uploading of the rejected return will not be considered as the date of filing, rather the date of uploading of the successfully "filedâ€, return (after the assessee carries out necessary corrections and uploads it again) will be considered as the actual date of filing. 2. In case the assessee experiences any difficulty in transacting in ACES such as filing of return, the assessees may lodge a complaint with the ACES Service Desk or the department by e-mail and/or by telephone, details of which are given below and obtain a ticket no. as an acknowledgement from the department. However, mere lodging of complaints with the ACES service desk will not be a valid ground to justify late filing of returns. If the difficulty is not on account of problems at the assessee's end, and can be clearly attributed to the department's ....