Procedure for e-payment of duty

Procedure for e-payment of duty:

E-payment of excise duty facilitates anytime, anywhere payment of the duty. Moreover, after the payment of duty online, the receipt of the same is generated instantly. It provides the convenience of making on line payment of Central Excise and Service Tax through Bank‘s internet banking service. E-payment of the excise duty can be made through ACES.

For e-payment, assessees should open a net banking account with one of the authorized banks. For effecting payment, assessees can access the ACES website and click on the e – payment link that will take them to the EASIEST portal or they can directly visit the EASIEST portal.

Procedure for e-payment of excise duty can be summarized as follows: –

(i) To pay excise duty and service tax online, the assessee has to enter the 15 digit Assessee Code allotted by the Department under erstwhile SACER/SAPS or the current application ACES. There will be an online check on the validity of the Assessee Code entered.

(ii) If the Assessee code is valid, then corresponding assessee details like name, address, Commissionerate Code etc. as present in the Assessee Code Master will be displayed.

(iii) Based on the Assessee Code, the duty / tax i.e. Central excise duty or service tax to be paid will be automatically selected.

(iv) The assessee is required to select the type of duty / tax to be paid by clicking on Select Accounting Codes for excise or Select Accounting Codes for service tax, depending on the type of duty / tax to be paid.

v) At a time the assessee can select up to six Accounting Codes.

(vi) The assessee should also select the bank through which payment is to be made.

(vii) On submission of data entered, a confirmation screen will be displayed. If the taxpayer confirms the data entered in the screen, it will be directed to the net -banking site of the bank selected.

(viii) The taxpayer will login to the net-banking site with the user id/ password, provided by the bank for net-banking purpose, and will enter payment details at the bank site.

(ix) On successful payment, a challan counterfoil will be displayed containing CIN, payment details and bank name through which e-payment has been made. This counterfoil is proof of payment made.

Automation of Central Excise and Service Tax (ACES)

(a) What is ACES?: In continuation of its efforts for trade facilitation, CBEC has rolled-out a new centralized, web-based and workflow-based software application called Automation of Central Excise and Service Tax (ACES) in all 104 Commissionerates of Central excise, service tax and large tax payer units (LTUs) as on 23rd December, 2009. ACES is a Mission Mode project (MMP) of the Govt. of India under the national e-governance plan and it aims at improving tax-payer services, transparency, accountability and efficiency in the indirect tax administration in India. This application has replaced the current applications of SERMON, SACER, and SAPS used in Central excise and service tax for capturing returns and registration details of the assessees.

(b) Automation of major processes: ACES has automated the major processes of Central excise and service tax-registration, returns, accounting, refunds, dispute resolution, audit, provisional assessment, exports, claims, intimations and permissions.

(c) Benefits to the assessee: The ACES offers following benefits to the assessee:-

1. Reduce physical interface with the Department

2. Save time

3. Reduce paper work

4. Online registration and amendment of registration details

5. Electronic filing of all documents such as applications for registration, returns [On -line and off-line downloadable versions of ER 1,2,3,4,5,6, Dealer Return, and ST3], claims, permissions and intimations; provisional assessment request, export -related documents, refund request.

6. System-generated E-Acknowledgement

7. Online tracking of the status of selected documents

8. Online view facility to see selected documents

9. Internal messaging system on business-related matters

(d) Registration with ACES: To transact business on ACES a user has to first register himself/herself with ACES through a process called ‘Registration with ACES‘. This registration is not a statutory registration as envisaged in Acts/Rules governing Central Excise and Service Tax but helps the application in recognizing the bonafide users.

(e) E-filing of Returns: The assesses can electronically file statutory returns of Central excise and service tax by choosing one of the two facilities being offered by the Department at present:-

(a) they can file it online, or

(b) download the off-line return utilities which can be filled-in off-line and uploaded to the system through the internet.

(f) Certified Facilitation Centres (CFCs): CBEC has set up ACES Certified Facilitation Centres (CFCs) with the help of professional bodies like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) etc.

(i) These CFCs provide a host of services to the assessees such as digitization of paper documents like returns etc. and uploading the same to ACES.

(ii) Assessees requiring the services of the CFCs may be required to pay service fees to the CFCs.

(iii) CBEC will approve the maximum rates at which CFCs can charge their customers for the services rendered by them.

(iv) For this purpose, assessees are required to write to the Department authorizing one of the CFCs, from the approved list, to work in ACES on their behalf. They have to furnish the name and other details of the CFCs, including the registration number issued by the ICAI/ICWAI etc.

(v) At any given time, one assessee can authorize one CFC, while one CFC can provide services to more than one assessee throughout India.

(vi) In case the assessee wants to withdraw the authorization, it can do so by intimating the department.

(vii) However, an assessee will be held liable for all actions of omission or commission of the CFC, during the period they are authorized by him/her to work in ACES.

EASIEST (Electronic Accounting System in Excise and Service Tax)

(i) What is EASIEST scheme?: EASIEST has been developed to make payment of tax easy.

(ii) Benefits of EASIEST to the taxpayer

(a) Only one copy of the challan has to be filled instead of earlier four copies.

(b) Facility of online verification of the status of tax payment using CIN.

(iii) Challan Identification Number (CIN): Challan Identification Number (CIN) is a 20 digit unique identifier which will be given on the Taxpayer‘s computer generated acknowledgement /receipt. This number is a combination of the BSR code of the bank branch (first 7 digits), the date of deposit (next 8 digits) and Challan Serial Number (last 5 digits).

(iv) Assessee code: Assessee code/registration number/ECC code are all one and the same. It is a 15-character identification number allotted by the system to the assessee based on the PAN number or temporary number (if PAN is not submitted) when the registration details are entered in the Central Server. The 15-character assessee code will be available in the registration certificate issued to the assessee by the Assistant Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner of the Division.

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