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2018 (10) TMI 1521 - GUJARAT HIGH COURTTransitional Credit - validity of period of limitation - CENVAT credit of excise duty paid on capital goods which were in transit as on 01.07.2017 - inputs/capital goods - Vires of of Article 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India - Gujarat Goods and Service Tax Act - IGST Act. Held that:- Subsection (5) of section 140 allows a registered person, credit of eligible duties and tax in respect of inputs or input services which were received on or after the appointed day but on which the tax was paid earlier. In absence of any matching provisions pertaining to capital goods, in a situation where the duty had been paid on purchase of goods prior to the appointed day but the goods were received on or after the appointed day, there would be no possibility of availing credit on such tax under the GST regime. The legislature made a clear and conscious demarcation between capital goods and inputs when it comes to availing credit of the duties paid on the goods which are in transit. When the entire tax structure was being replaced by the GST provisions, there would arise a need for making transitional arrangements. In the present case, the source of the petitioner's grievance or dissatisfaction is that the inputs and capital goods are treated differently. When we find that the inputs and capital goods form different and distinct classes, the question of subclassification or artificial demarcation would not arise - it appears that the suggestion of the respondents is that unlike inputs, the capital goods which can be in the nature of plant and machinery including highly sophisticated specially designed and manufactured machines, may take much longer time for delivery and installation after the orders are placed by the manufacturers and the legislature was not inclined to keep the issues of migration of tax credits and pending claims open for indefinite period of time. If it is accepted that there is no time period for claiming input tax credit as contained in section 19(11), the provision would become too flexible and would give rise to large number of disputes including of verification of claim of input credit. Taxing statutes contained self contains scheme of levying computation and calculation of tax. The time under which a return is to be filed for the purpose of assessment of tax cannot be dependent on the will of a dealer. The statute in any manner do not violate Article 14 or 19(1)(g) of the constitution - petition dismissed.
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