2025 (6) TMI 445
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....oner in which he confirmed the demand of service tax of Rs. 11,93,60,235/- on the appellant along with interest under section 75 of the Finance Act, 1994 Act and imposed an equal amount as penalty under section 78 of the Act. 2. The appellant was created as an associate organization of the Department of Public Relations, Government of Chhattisgarh to provide multi-media advertising and publicity for various schemes of that Government. The departments and organizations place orders on the appellant which has an in-house expert team to prepare the content for the advertisements, hoardings, ad- films, posters, etc. After the designs are approved by the client department, the appellant gets the advertisements published through empanelled age....
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....13 to 20.9.2015 was within the normal period of limitation. (ii) The appellant was previously audited by the Central Excise Department on the same issues and an SCN dated 30.5.2011 had been issued to the appellant. Therefore, the department cannot say that it was not aware how the appellant conducts its business or that the appellant had suppressed any facts in this SCN which was issued for a subsequent period. Reliance is placed on Nizam Sugar Factory vs Collector of Central Excise, AP 2008 (9) STR 312 (SC). (iii) Therefore, it cannot be said that the appellant had not paid or short paid service tax by reason of fraud or collusion or wilful mis-statement or suppression of facts or violation of the provisions of the Act or....
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....sed to the empanelled agency Service charges of the appellant @15% 15.00 Charges of the appellant Service tax on service charges of Rs. 15/- 2.25 Service tax on the service charges paid by the appellant Total 115.00 (vii) As far as the services rendered towards print media are concerned, they were exempted by notification no. 14/2004-ST dated 10.9.2004 during the pre-negative list and by entry no. 30 of notification no. 25/2012-ST dated 20.6.2012 during the post negative list regime. Therefore, no service tax was payable and none was paid. (viii) Selling of space or time for advertisement as defined under section 65(105) (zzzm) of the Act was not taxable before 1.7.2012. After 1.7.2012, se....
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....d of limitation could not be invoked. 9. In this case, there is no dispute that the appellant was registered with the service tax department and had been self- assessing service tax and filing returns. If the returns are filed, it is the responsibility of the officer to scrutinize them and for this purpose, he can also call for any records and scrutinize them. If the officer failed to do so and if some tax escapes assessment and it is later discovered by the audit, the fault lies at the doorstep of the officer. The negligence of the officer cannot be called suppression by the assessee. Learned counsel submits that the appellant was previously audited and an SCN was issued on the same grounds. If that be so, we are surprised why the range....
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....ication by the Commissioner. Demand of service tax said to have been collected from the client departments and not deposited 14. According to the appellant, it had invoiced the client departments what the empanelled agencies had charged and service tax on such amounts and its own service charges and service tax on it. It paid the service tax on its service charges and there is no dispute about it. The amounts which it had collected towards service tax in the invoices raised by the empanelled agencies were collected by the appellant and paid to the empanelled agencies. The appellant had not retained any amounts. 15. We find that the Commissioner did not agree with this submission in the impugned order for the reason that the appella....
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.... All services were taxable except what were under the negative list. The submission of the learned chartered Accountant is that in the post negative list regime, the services of the appellant were exempted by notification no. 25/2012-ST dated 20.6.2012 (S.No. 30). This notification provides exemption to various services. S.No. 30 reads as follows: " 30. Services by way of carrying out, - (i) any process amounting to man ufacture or production of good excluding alcoholic liquor for human consumption; or (ii) any intermediate production process as job work not amounting to manufacture or production in relation to- (a) agriculture, printing or textile processing ; ******* " 19. What is exempted u....
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