Home Case Index All Cases Service Tax Service Tax + AT Service Tax - 2019 (11) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2019 (11) TMI 1619 - AT - Service TaxRecovery of CENVAT Credit along with interest and equivalent penalty thereon for the alleged failure to pay the value of input service within a period of three months - violation of proviso to Rule 4(7) of the ‘CCR’ - recovery on the strength of invoices addressed to the site office as opposed to the registered premises of the Appellant is justified? Failure to pay the value of input service within a period of three months - HELD THAT:- Given that the proviso to Rule 4(7) of the CCR, itself provides for taking recredit of the amount on payment of the value of input service along with tax thereon to the service provider, the Appellant is certainly entitled to the credit of the amount, which stands already paid to the supplier of services. Hence, in so far as the credit of ₹ 11,48,68,498 (i.e. ₹ 11,52,58,830 – ₹ 3,90,332) is concerned, we are of the considered view that it is at best a case of pre-mature availment of such credit and that too only on the expiry of ninety days from the date when such credit stood originally taken. Consequently, payment of interest alone from the expiry of ninety days upto the date on which the value of input service along with service tax of ₹ 11,48,68,498 stood paid to the service providers referred in RUD-7, should meet the ends of justice. The adjudicating authority did travel beyond the Notice in so far as it denied the Cenvat credit comprised in the 1st issue formulated above on the ground that no evidence was adduced by the Appellant as regards payment of tax by the service provider. The Service Tax Law provides for legal remedy to the department in the form of Section 73 and 73A to enforce recovery of service tax not paid by the service provider after having collected the same. The period with which we are concerned in this proceeding did not cast any responsibility on the Appellant as a service recipient to ensure payment of tax by the service provider and the judicial decisions cited by the Appellant fully supports this proposition. Recovery on the strength of invoices addressed to the site office as opposed to the registered premises of the Appellant is justified or not? - HELD THAT:- The substantive benefit of Cenvat credit cannot be denied for procedural infractions. The availment of credit by the Appellant in respect of the 11 invoices issued by M/s. G.S. Atwal & Co and addressed to the site office as opposed to the registered office is only a procedural breach - the demand for recovery of Cenvat credit along with associated interest and penalty on this score is set aside. Matter remanded back for computation of interest - appeal allowed by way of remand.
|