TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 366
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....ide Registration No. AANPP1239KSD001 & AANPP1239KSD002 for providing taxable services as defined under Section 65B (44) of the erstwhile Finance Act, 1994. 2.2 As per the data received from the Income Tax Department for the Financial year 2016-17 that the appellant had received an amount of Rs.20,14,316/- against sales/gross receipts from services. However, it was noticed that the appellant has failed to pay the due service tax amount of Rs.3,02,148/-on the above said value for the Financial Year 2016-17. 2.3 Accordingly, show cause notice dated 27.09.2021 was issued to the appellant, asking them to show cause as to why- "(i) Service Tax amounting to Rs.3,02,148/-(Inel S. B Cess) (Rupees Three Lakh two Thousand one Hundred And four Eight only) so deliberatively and willfully short paid by them during the period from 2016-17 should not be demanded and recovered from them under proviso to Section 73 (1) of the Finance Act, 1994; (ii) Interest, on the above amount of Service Tax, should not be demanded and recovered from them under the provisions of Section 75 of the Finance Act, 1994; (iii) Penalty should not be imposed upon them under the provisions ....
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....R by the appellant. Appellant had contended that they had stopped their business activities in the name of Jai Maa Traders from the year 2014 and have also surrendered the TIN issued to them by VAT department. Interestingly the demand has been made without specifying the services provided by the appellant. Order in Original records as follows: "6.4 I observed that he party is registered taxpayers vide Service Tax Registration AANPPI239KSD001 and AANPPI239KSD002 under the service tax net and has not filed their Service Tax Return for the FY 2016-17. On the basis of the third party data received from Income Tax Department for the F.Y. 2016-17, it is noticed that the party had received an amount of Rs. 2014316/- against sales' gross receipts from services (value from ITR), while as per ST data, received, gross value- of services provided/ received was Rs. 0/-. As such, there was a difference of Rs. 2014316/- between value of services from ITR and gross value of services provided. Accordingly, an enquiry was initiated by the jurisdiction Range officer against the party to enquire into non-payment of service tax vide letter dated 08.02.2021 to gave testimony and produce doc....
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....turns. Thus, there was no occasion for the department to know that what was the taxable value received by the appellant during the relevant period against provision of services, as noticed by the respondent department from relevant ITR of the appellant. Had the enquiry been not initiated, the non-payment / short payment of tax would have gone unnoticed. I also note that there are columns in the ST-3 returns for claiming exemption / deductions, in spite of that the actual gross receipt was not reflected by the appellant in respective ST-3 returns during the impugned period. Thus, I find that there was clear suppression of facts with intent to evade payment of Service Tax on the part of the appellant. Therefore, I uphold invoking of extended period of limitation for the purpose of confirming demand by the adjudicating authority being legal and proper. Therefore, the said Service Tax of Rs.3,02,148/- not paid for the period of 2016-17 is required to be recovered along with interest under section 75 of the Act from them under the proviso to Section 73(1) of the Act, read with Section 174 of the CGST Act, 2017 by invoking extended period of five years, is proper and justified." 4.4 I....
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....der, in para 13.6.12, the adjudicating authority observed that the contracts are classifiable as 'Mining Service, Clearing and Forwarding Services' and finally in para 13.5, he concluded that the services are classifiable under 'Cargo Handling Service'. In the case of Ugam Chand Bhandari v. CCE reported in 2004(167)ELT 491/2004 taxmann.com 823 (SC), the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that when there is lack of clarity even within the department, extended period cannot be invoked to demand duty. As observed above, the adjudicating authority himself has classified the service under different categories. Thus, we observe that there was no clarity on the classification of the service even within the department. Accordingly, following the above cited decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, we hold that there is no suppression of fact involved in this case. Consequently, extended period cannot be invoked to demand duty. On the same reason, penalties imposed in the impugned order are also not sustainable." 4.7 In case of Rangoli Division [Final Order No 51318/2023 dated 19.09.2023 in Service Tax Appeal No. 51722 OF 2018] Delhi Bench has observed as follows: ....