2025 (10) TMI 1384

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....idual co-owners entered into a rent agreement with Punjab State Warehousing Corporation; however, the individual co-owners received the rent separately as decided in the agreement. Entertaining an opinion that the individual owners have entered into an agreement to form an Association of Persons (AoP), Revenue issued a show cause notice dated 15.10.2012 seeking to recover service tax of Rs. 11,07,833/- for the period 01.06.2007 to 31.03.2012; the show cause notice was followed by statement of facts dated 31.03.2014 for recovery of service tax of Rs. 2,52,098/- for the period 2012-13; the show cause notice was adjudicated vide OIO dated 27.04.2015 confirming the liabilities; Commissioner (Appeals) vide impugned order upheld the demands. Henc....

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....ly, it appears that the adjudicating authority or the Revenue were not clear in their approach. On the one hand, they seek to recover service tax from a non-existent AOP and other hand, seek to appropriate the service tax paid by the individual owners. We find that no case has been made by the Department to demand service tax from the alleged AOP. We find that co-ordinate Bench of this Tribunal in Mumbai held in the case of Deoram Vishrambhai Patel (supra), which was followed by this Bench in the case of Anil Saini (supra) held that: 6. We have considered the submissions made by both sides and perused the records. The issue that needs to be decided in this case is whether the respondent and his brothers are to be treated as associa....

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.... Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Standard Life Insurance Ltd. are also entered into by the appellants in their individual capacity, as per SCN also, all four co-owners have obtained separate Registration Certificate on 10-4-2012 and all the four co-owners individually paid their Service tax liability along with interest on 14-2-2012. Thus, the ownership of the Property and providing of taxable renting of immovable Property by the four appellants in this case is in their individual capacity and, therefore, their tax liability should have been determined by considering their individual rental receipts and not collective one. From the various lease agreements made with above mentioned Commercial firms, it cannot be disputed that monthly ren....

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....aid period. Hence, the question of penalty under Section 76 for the said period does not arise. For the subsequent period i.e. 2009-10 & 2010-11, the appellants have already accepted their tax liability and paid Service tax along with interest on 14-2-2012. The said payment of service tax is certainly a delayed payment, but was made by the appellants on their own when they realized that their taxable value for renting of property had exceeded the exemption limit of Rs. 10 lakhs. The adjudicating authority has claimed in his order that the appellants paid service tax only after Department started investigation, but it is not supported by any evidence or the facts on record. The SCN or the OIO do not talk of any audit objection or Preventive ....