Trade Notice No.14/2011 – Service Tax/SH

                Dated Shillong, 12^th September, 2011.

 Subject : Problem in filling ST-3 returns for the current period, if by mistake assesses  already filed returns for this period – procedure for Rectification – reg.                  

              Attention to the members of Trade, Industry and all concerned are hereby invited to the instructions issued by Directorate General of Systems & Data Management, Customs & Central Excise, New Delhi, under F.No. IV(24)23/2011-Systems Dated 25.08.2011 on the above subject. 

 Instances have been reported by some field formations to this Directorate-General that some assesses had inadvertently filed ST3 Returns online in ACES for a future period. As a result, when they tried filling the returns for the same period, when it was due, the system did not accept it as the returns for that period were already in the database. 

As per the earlier functionality in ACES, the system allowed filling of ST3 returns by choosing the period, from the drop menu (Apr-Sept or Oct-March) for a particular financial year, for which the return was required to be filed and there was no validation in the  system to disallow choosing a future  period. As a result, if an assesses   wishing to file a return for six-month period of Apr-Sept, 2010, inadvertently   selected Oct-March period  from the drop-down menu, instead of disallowing the assesses to file return for this period (Oct-Mar), it permitted filing the return. Subsequently, when he tried to file the return for the period Oct-March, 2011, the system would not allow him to file. 

In order to prevent occurrence of this problem, modification has been carried out in ACES application and now assesses are not being allowed to file ST-3 Returns for any future period. It is, however, verified that around 1050 assesses have already filed such returns, some of which have approached the ACES Service Desk with a request to correct the period of return so as to enable them to file return for the current period. 

But since any such corrections by DG Systems, on the basis of direct request from the assesses may lead to legal dispute or revenue lost, and may, therefore, be misused, it has been decided that upon receipt of request from such assesses, the Commissionerate will verify the genuineness of the claim of the assesses for amendment of the period of return and if satisfied, will forward their recommendation to DG (Systems). Upon receipt of the specific recommendations from the Commissionerates for change of period of return, DGS will correct the return period at back-end to enable the asseesses  to file the ST-3 Returns for the concerned period.

Trade is therefore informed that the requests, if any, should be submitted to the jurisdictional Range/Division/Commissionerate only, who in turn will thoroughly examine the same before sending recommendations to DGS for correcting the return period through a back-end process in ACES.  

Authority:

F. No.IV(24)23/2011-Systems/1881 Dated 25.08.2011 issued by Directorate General of Systems & Data Management, C&CE, New Delhi.                        

Disclaimer: Though care has been taken to reproduce the text in its original form, in case of any inadvertent mistake, the above mentioned letter may be referred to.

                                                (Anil Kumar Gupta)

                                                                                                                                       Commissioner