Hi Rajeev,
41/2007 dated 06 Oct 2007 is the Mother Notification for the refundof service tax to the exporters. A number of notifications have beenissued subsequent to this one adding more services on which claim ofrefund of service tax may be sought. The first thing you've got todo is fill up Form attached as an appendix to the above notificationsetting out details of your client firm. This Form is required to befilled in order to be allotted a STC (Service Tax Code).I would just give you the broad category of services on which thepayment of ST is eligible to be claimed back. Nearly all exporterspay a fee to an Inspection Agency for supervising the stuffing ofthe containers. The service tax paid on this fee is refundable(Section 65(105)(zzi)—Notif 41/2007). Service tax paid on Railwayfreight paid to the Container Corp of India is refundable (section 65(105)(zzp)—Notif 41/2007). Service tax paid on Letter of CreditAdvising/Amendment charges and Service tax charged by bank oncharges towards collection/negotiation of documents is liable to berefunded (section 65(105)(zm)—Notif 17/2008 dt 01st April 2008). Theservice tax element included in Forward booking and cancellationcharges is also eligible to be claimed as refund vide Notif 24/2008dated 10 May 2008. Commission paid to a foreign agent is alsoeligible to be claimed back (section 65(105)(zzb)—Notif 17/2008.Service tax paid to Customs House Agent will be refunded to you videNotif 17/2008.ST paid on Courier charges paid towards sending export samples tothe buyer will be reimbursed to you (section 65(105)(f)—Notif 3/2008dated 19 Feb 2008.You can access all these notifications by logging on towww.servicetax.gov.inThe exporter pays sea freight through the clearing and forwardingagent. The C & F Agent charges us Terminal Handling Charges over andabove the reimbursement of Ocean freight paid by him in dollars tothe Shipping Line. On the THC he charges us Service tax. Since theTHC is also a reimbursement (although owing to the C & F agent'sinability of furnish any proof of this payment being a merereimbursement, we have no choice but to subject the THC to TDS), itrightfully goes to Shipping Line. So it is really service tax paidin connection with transportation of goods from the Inland ContainerDepot to the Port of Export (section 65(105)(zzp)), which is aneligible service under Notif No 41/2007. But the Commissioners aredenying refund of ST on the THC paid to the clearing agents on thehyper-technicality that the payment made doesn't precisely fit intothe nature of payment specified u/s 65(105(zzp) because the C & Fagents haven't got themselves registered under this section of FA1994. Since the exporters do not get to deal with the Shipping Linesdirectly, they tend to lose out on the Service tax paid to C & Fagents for no fault of theirs. But you may still lodge this claim.However, we recently have had another notification come out--NotifNo 33/2008 dated 07 December 2008. This Notification seeks to allowclaim of refund of ST paid to Clearing and Forwarding agents u/s 65(105)(j). So it seems we won't be able to press our claim for STrefund on THC paid to C & F agents prior to 07 December 2008?The claim has to be lodged within 60 days of the end of eachquarter. But I think this period has been extended to 6 monthsrecently (Don't think the government has any altruistic intentionsbehind this move—it just wants to defer the refund for as long as itcan; the longer the exporters take to claim the refund; the longerthe government gets to sit on our money!). You'll have to do a greatdeal of paper work. Have you Photocopier serviced. A bulky filecontaining copies of bank-attested invoices, Bills of Lading, BankRealization Certificates and copies of each of the bills/receiptsevidencing the payment of ST will have to prepared and submitted.Thanks,CA Sanjeev Bedi--- In
ICAI_CIRC_MEERUT_CA@yahoogroups.com, "RAJEEV AGARWAL"
No comments:
Post a Comment