It is true that the service rendered by the assessee by way of sale of pre‐paid SIM cards through distributors was ultimately received by the subscribers. However, where the law prescribes the value of taxable service to be the gross amount charged by the service‐provider, Service tax can be levied on that amount only.
The issue of limitation of claim under Sec 11B as raised by Revenue is also not maintainable because the amount paid by the appellant in excess of their service tax liability ceased to be in nature of service tax paid by them and is merely an excess deposit paid by the appellant.
The appellant availed CENVAT credit on input and capital goods. On a visit of the Central Excise officers, Preventive Unit, Thane – I on 20/02/2007, on their insurance, the appellant have reversed CENVAT credit of Rs.1, 70,737/- on 12/03/2007.
Appellant is engaged in the activity of registration of website domain names i.e. appellant is a registrar. The appellant is also accredited by International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for certain top level domains.
The adjudicating authority shall give in writing details of the documents he requires from the appellant apart from the documents already supplied within seven days of receipt of this order and thereafter the appellant shall supply the documents within seven days and thereafter the adjudicating authority shall decide the claim of refund within fifteen days.
If on the basis of an agreement between the State authority and the concessionaire for construction of roads, the contractor is authorised to collect the toll charges from the users of the roads for the services rendered and the entire activity is done on Build-Own/Operate-Transfer basis, there is no service tax liability. Construction of roads has been specifically excluded from the scope of service tax levy both under “Commercial and Industrial Construction Service” and “Works Contract Service”. Further repair and maintenance of roads have also been exempted from service tax retrospectively in this year’s budget. Thus the intention of the Government is to keep out road construction activity from the purview of service tax. If that be so, how can service tax be levied on the very same activity under Business Auxiliary Service (BAS)? Such a view does not appeal to any reason or logic.
From the impugned order, it does not come out clearly how the service tax liability has been computed. If the appellant has purchased from third parties and sold the same on payment of VAT and also supplied hardware on payment of VAT, the same would not be liable to service tax. The liability to service tax would arise only in respect of software which the appellant has developed as per customer’s specifications and supplied to their customers.
The Hon’ble Tribunal has held that Excise duty paid on Inputs and Service Tax paid on Input services used in the construction of immovable property can be taken and utilized for discharging ST liability on the renting of such immovable property and granted unconditional waiver from the pre-deposit of the dues adjudged against the Appellant and stay recovery thereof during the pendency of the Appeal on the basis of relying upon the following case laws:
The issue in the present case is whether service tax paid on ‘rent-a-cab service’ for transportation of staff from Vashi railway station to the container freight station run by the appellant is an eligible input service under Rule 2(l) of the Rule or not. The Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in the case of Stanzen Toyotetsu India (P.) Ltd. (supra) and Bell Ceramics Ltd. (supra) has held that these services are eligible input service under CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 and CENVAT Credit o the service tax paid thereon is available.
MD of the appellant company also performed the job of MD of M/s Brembo Brakes India Ltd. for which he was compensated. If at all, any advisory activity was undertaken by the said person, the demand for Service Tax can be made only on him and not on the appellant. Further, there is no evidence on record to show that the MD of the appellant firm rendered any consultancy/advisory services. He actually functioned as the MD of the other company also, therefore, the remuneration received by him through the appellant company does not come under the category of ‘Management Consultancy Services’ in terms of the Board’s Circular cited above.
