2017 (3) TMI 241

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....he category of Clearing and Forwarding Agency Service. The department gathered information that the appellant is not discharging the service tax on the said service provided by him. On verification of the documents provided by the appellant, it was noticed that the appellant had realized the value of taxable service to the tune of Rs. 1,76,61,224/- on which the service tax liability worked out to Rs. 19,63,962/-. It was also observed that they had collected the service tax from the service recipient and had not deposited the same with the Government. In the statement dated 22.3.2014, the appellant admitted that they had been collecting the service tax on the amount of commission received as consideration for services provided to M/s. Birla ....

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....ss of the appellant for which a medical certificate has been produced and the show-cause notice has been issued after the payment of service tax and interest, which is contrary to Board s Circular and decision of the High Courts and Tribunal. 5. On the other hand, the learned AR defended the impugned order and submitted that the learned Commissioner (A) has passed a reasoned order imposing the penalty on the appellant because in this case the appellant has been collecting the service tax from the service recipient and has not deposited the same with the Government and has not filed the returns. He further submitted that in this case there was a suppression of material fact by the appellant and therefore the extended period was rightly in....

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.... of service tax is the shortage of proper trained staff and lack of awareness of law. It has also been stated in the submissions that the appellant was ill and had to entrust the work to his staff. The appellant who has collected the service tax from the recipients of the service cannot take a plea that there was no willful suppression of facts from the department as collection of service tax from recipient of service implies that tax collected needs to be deposited with the government. The service tax collected if not deposited with the government automatically leads to an inference that there was an intention on the part of the appellant to evade the tax, Therefore, the contention that there is no evidence adduced by the department in all....