Home Case Index All Cases Service Tax Service Tax + AT Service Tax - 2022 (3) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2022 (3) TMI 555 - CESTAT NEW DELHITaxability - services of advertisements of the advertisers and broadcasting or telecasting them - circular No. 341/43/96-TRU dated 31.10.1996 - Return / refund of money deposited as service tax - Unjust enrichment - HELD THAT:- Undisputedly, the appellant is involved in only the third activity of carrying the advertisements in its channels. CBEC Circular No. 341/43/96-TRU dated 31.10.1996 clarified that the amount paid for space and time in getting the advertisement published in the print or electronic media would not be included in the value of taxable service rendered by the advertisement agency and accordingly the service tax was payable only on the commission received by the advertisement agency. In the present case, it is true that no service tax was chargeable on the activity of the appellant, viz., carrying the advertisements in its broadcast and telecast. Therefore, the Government cannot collect service tax. It is also true that Section 73A(2) which mandated that any person who collects any amount as representing service tax to deposit it with the Government also did not exist at the relevant time. Thus, the Government had no authority to demand the amount. Had the appellant collected the amounts from its customers as representing tax as a matter of precaution, it could have paid it as tax under protest. Once, it is decided that no tax is payable, the appellant could have repaid the customers and claimed a refund. If the appellant had claimed refund without returning the amounts in part or whole to its customers, such refund would have been sanctioned under section 11B and the amounts would have been credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund under Section 11B of the Central Excise Act as applicable to the provisions of Service tax by Finance Act, 1994. Section 11B, including the provision of refunds being credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund were applicable during the period of dispute - Neither the Government nor the appellant has any right over the amounts collected from the customers as representing service tax in the absence of any legal provisions. The appellant is directed to return the amount collected by it, under the garb of its liability to pay service tax when actually it was not liable, to all those customers from whom it was collected that too within a period of two months - the order under challenge confirming the demand with interest and imposing penalty upon appellant is hereby set aside - Appeal allowed.
|