Infrastructure and working conditions in Service Tax Commissionerates, Mumbai – reg.

Central  Excise Superintendents’ Association, Mumbai Unit of AIACEGEO ( Recognized under F. No. B-12017/10/206-Ad-IV A dtd. 21-01-2008 ).    V.A. Kolhatkar, President                    A.K. Sasmal-General Secretary

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Mumbai I,  II,  III, V,  Thane I, II, Belapur, Raigad, Customs Prev,, Service Tax – I & II Comm’te & L.T.U. Mumbai.

 

Ref : CESA/30/2013

Dtd : 18.06.2013

Ms. Lipika Majumdar,

Hon’ble Member(Service Tax),

CBEC, New Delhi.

Respected Madam,

Sub:- Infrastructure and working conditions in Service Tax Commissionerates,

Mumbai – reg.

Your kind attention is invited to the long neglected Infrastructure availability, ad-hoc functioning of Service Tax and staff problems of Mumbai.  

In the year 1994 Service Tax was initially started with 4 services. On experimental basis the office first started functioning in Mumbai from the 6^th floor of the Central Excise building situated at Churchgate. Since then the collection and growth of the Service Tax has increased manifold. The Revenue of Service Tax has increased to a staggering Rs 1,32,388/- Crores to the exchequer in the financial year 2012-2013.

As on date there are 7 Service Tax Commissionerates and 18 independent Service Tax Divisions in the country. The Service Tax collections from the Service Tax Commissionerates, LTU & Raigad Dn. are Rs. 43,668/- Crores Rs. 2,243/- Crores and Rs.632 Crores, respectively.

In last financial year Chennai Service Tax Commissionerate having 5 Divisions contributed only Rs.5,946/- Crores. The Revenue collections of Delhi & Kolkata having more Divisions as compared to Mumbai are much less than Mumbai.

Not only the revenue, even the number of assessees in Mumbai are more as compared to other places. As a result, the number of returns filed, related audit and anti evasion work is also very high. However, the number of Commissionerates and Divisions does not commensurate to the quantum of assessee base and the consequent work load. It is beyond anyone’s comprehension as to how such a huge quantum of work is being handled with such a small strength of officers working in Mumbai Service Tax having mere two Commissionerates and six Divisions within the time limit prescribed. The more agonizing fact is that despite less revenue realization at other places, the number of Divisions, Infrastructure and Manpower is much better than Mumbai. The entire approach right from local administration to the Board level is discriminatory so far as Mumbai is concerned. This is evident from the fact that since inception of independent Service Tax Commissionerate, not a single office premises for Service Tax has been acquired or hired by the Administration. The entire operations of both the Service Tax Commissionerates are from the existing Central Excise offices on ad-hoc basis.

 This Association, CESA Mumbai has repeatedly brought to the notice of the Administration all these facts. Except for some minor changes i.e. shifting of one Division to another place after the surprise visit of the then Chairman Shri V. Shreedhar nothing has changed.

 Madam, the Department is spending lots of money in inventing means and methods to draw the attention of the defaulters of Service Tax by asking them to file returns and to pay Service Tax under ‘Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme’ (VCES) through advertisements. However, when it comes to the major Revenue yielding centre like Mumbai, the same Department is not ready to spend any amount or care to improve the basic infrastructure so as to provide sufficient working conditions for its own staff.

The Advertisements talk about the Nation building from the Tax collected, but if the machinery is incapacitated to collect even the revenue due or allow pilferage of it due to lack of Infrastructure and Manpower, is it not an offence against the Nation?  Who should be held accountable and responsible for this kind of Revenue Loss? The Administration is always busy in stereo type mechanized routine work like preparation of hypothetical estimations, and endless performance reports, etc., neglecting the core issues of infrastructure and other basic amenities to the field staff. 

The working conditions in Mumbai are so pathetic that we feel ashamed to put it in black & white in our representation time and again that the Administration is not even able to provide basic amenities such as office space, stationery, Chair & Table, Computer, Laptop, Internet, Printer, Vehicle & funds for visiting assessee’s premises for Audit or Anti-Evasion work. The officers of Audit and Anti-Evasion are being frequently called from their working place at Madhu Industrial Estate, Worli or Dharavi to Headquarters at Churchgate, forcing the officers to incur expenses from their own pockets and spend extra time. Due to tremendous work pressure and poor working conditions apart from Metropolitan stress, the officers fell sick or face some serious ailments and the apathy is that the Administration does not have funds to grant timely Medical assistance to the ailing officers.

During the days of collection of Central excise under physical control, we had to depend on the assessee for stationery, office, vehicles, etc. The situation is not different now, though the Revenue has increased manifold. This is mainly due to the mindset of the administration towards its field staff, which has not changed. There is a need to change the mindset of the administration so that the officers can function properly and deliver the best to the department without felt being neglected.

Madam, still there are lots of issues to elaborate, but it is felt that the same would not serve any purpose. The gravity of the above issues can be gauged properly only if your good-self. Spare some time and visit the offices of Mumbai Service Tax and have interaction with the officers working there. It is also suggested that you may take out some time from your tight schedule and meet the family members of the deceased officers, who have lost their life while serving in the Service Tax Department.

Madam, we have high hopes from you because you are well aware with the Mumbai administration. We hope and expect that the basic problems faced by the Mumbai Service tax staff can be solved only by a determined approach and in a time bound manner.

            Apart from the above, the problems faced by the staff in ACES is annexed to this letter for your kind perusal and redressal for effective functioning.

           

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely

Encl.: as above.

A.K. Sasmal

General Secretary

Copy to :1.  The DG(HRD), CBEC, New Delhi for kind information and necessary    action.

 2.  The DG(System & Data Management), CBEC, New Delhi for kind information and necessary action.

 3.  The Chief Commissioner, Central Excise, Zone-I / II, Mumbai for kind information and necessary action.

 4.  The Commissioner, Service Tax-I & II, Mumbai for kind information and necessary action.

 5.  The Secretary General(AIACEGEO), for kind information and necessary action.  



A  DETAILED NOTE SUBMITTED ON ACS BY CESA MUMBAI.

A(utomation of ) C(entral) E(xcise & ) S(ervice Tax)

Difficulties:

1.     ACES was introduced in 2009 in Central Excise & Service tax by leaving other old systems and all module brought under one system and it was felt that the entire tax collection and data compilation work will be on line and will be available for analysis to everyone in the department at his beck and call. But even after passing approx. 4 years, all this remain a distant dream. System cannot even generate a single report out of it and the authority who introduced it are not themselves sure about the authenticity of the data retrieved that is it correct or wrong and wants it to obtain even now from assessee and certification from field officers in the face that we are surprised when find letters to verify the aces data, do scrutiny of returns manually, or provide revenue realization reports every now and then from filed formation after spending crores of rupees on aces. Even the details of Registrant cannot be taken by the jurisdictional officer.

2.     Not only the above even gets letter that Registration nos are there but returns are not filed, but many a time it is noticed that registrations are surrendered but still shown as active in aces as no one bothered to update it and hence such things are coming.

3.     More over when ever any problem is referred either by officers or by assessee no response or improper replies or queries are coming forward from the systems administration and it continues for considerable long time. Help lines are many a time appears to be helpless lines/hopeless lines for trade and officers both.

4.     The Speed and connectivity is very slow and it takes much time to open page; whereas authorities who never work on aces or getting their work done from Inspector and Superintendents found saying that there is no work or it does not take much time and they put unrealistic targets of scrutiny of returns on officers, and harass them.

5.       System is not design to suit  field  formation and details which is necessary for scrutiny or assessment are not available and display in system;  e.g. in returns majority of the time it is stated in errors that duty payable and paid is not tallying but it is higher or lower and to what extent no idea, whereas in invoicing and payment of duty there is rounding off of duty and value both, thus when it is done on every place such error is bound to occur, display of notification several options are given and some time notification is valid and existing but aces shows does not exist or ask for serial no. whereas in notification there is no table or any serial no.

6.      Even it is found that non LTU unit filed return in LTU, which shows that there is no filtering system to prevent such patent wrongs and block it at initial stage itself.

7.     ACES System is not officers friendly as Superintendent cannot view all required details filed by the assessee simultaneously for scrutiny or assessment such as details of ST payments Challans, Cenvat credit availed and utilized, taxable and exempted services and notifications etc. e.g. for tracing one challan you have to go and search on entire record, there is no updating as many a time it is stated challan does not exists but on scrutiny it is found to be there, that means at the time of filing of return NSDL data was not linked and updated hence such errors occurred which could have been avoided and time saved had it been proper.

8.     ACES System does not provide or show the correct deficiency such as  wrong calculation of duty and short or excess payment ; comparative figures of the assessee for all the period of returns filed, invoice wise or service wise details of Cenvat credit availed by the assessee  etc.

9.     There is a provision to generate various Reports, issue of SCN, letters and other correspondence on line but till date ACES system cannot generate any correct reports required by the Department in respect of revenue, assessee and service category etc; and all the field officers have to prepare such reports manually which consume lot of time; and now many assessee are not given any hard copy of returns, yet officers are forced to do that, and when they ask assessee even they also get annoyed and ask for provisions to file hard copy.

10. CAAP Audit introduced but audit module is not yet operated on ACES, no access to audit officers to see the return and registration and other details of assessee on line and they still ask for the hard copy to Range and Divisions, this cause hardship and delay in conducting audit also. No efforts till date to prepare profile of assessee on line and have all the returns available and accessible to other officers for review purpose like audit preventive or by Anti evasion wings.

11. In registration till now digital signature facility is not introduced and hence assessee insists for signature and many a time even audit teams demands signed copy when they visit for audit.

12.  IN SCN module (SDR/DSR) for uploading of file is so complicated that it takes time to load and also to open, hence senior officers discourage to operate it, apart from the fact that due to this they have to do adjudication on their own and on line and cannot keep or transfer the case in call book on flimsy grounds to reduce their pendency on line. In SDR/DSR module, there is no provision for bunching of similar cases (periodical SCNs) of an assessee for issuance of consolidated one order-in-original

13. In the Refund Modules, there is no provision for bunching similar refund / rebate claims of one and same assessee. Hence, the AC/DC does not like to work on the Refund Module

14. In other misc matters also system is not proper for e.g.  Cancellation of invoices on line, intimation and permissions, PV reports on line in case of LTU, surrendering and cancellation of registrations etc.

15. LAN and Monitor has been installed by HP for Inspectors and other higher officers but SSO ID and any work portfolio has  not been assigned to the inspectors till date;

Infrastructure related issues:

Suggestions for improving Norms

16. The LAN, Monitors and Printers has been installed in C.EX / Service Tax but 98% Printers are presently not in working conditions because the cartages cost is approx. Rs. 8,000/- which exhaust in a month only; The 60 % LAN & Monitor installed for Inspector and other officers are lying unused in worst conditions as not usable and only 40 % are working conditions but not proper and HP is claiming huge maintenance charges for that without proper working ;

17.  It is suggested that ACES system module should be designed such like other department such as VAT, Income Tax etc; The present programmer i.e. Wipro should be discarded and separate Department IT officers has to be appointed ;

18. LAN is not properly working so Login of ACES system by the officers should be allowed through normal computer system as to enable the officers to work smoothly from any where ;

19. Work portfolio to the all officers from Inspector to Joint Commissioner is to be allotted and same should be monitor by their higher ups ;

If department wants to continue with the present system of ACES, then it should be upgraded and operational in all respect. The problem faced by officers/trade should be redressed within 24 hours. All the head of the office should sensitize the issue and regularly monitor the progress made in the ACES for its smooth functioning.