A Sigh of relief for the CST Dealers

CA Lalit Bajaj

At present, for obtaining declaration or certificates under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, the dealer submits/uploads application called SOR (Statement of Requirement) electronically. This SOR is processed by the Central Repository Officer and if found in order the statutory declarations/forms are approved and sent through post. The physical dispatch of these statutory declarations/ farms involves delay in actual delivery of forms to the applicants and hence was under revision.

The said process has been revised and it has now been proposed to electronically issue statutory declarations/forms under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 in PDF format to the e-mail address of the applicant. The relevant procedural changes have been designed so as to have minimum human interference. It is expected that in the eligible cases the applicant electronically receives the statutory declarations/forms in T+ 1 days.

To make the above possible and to improve the quality of services to dealers, a comprehensive and end to end automated eCST Module has been developed by the MVAT department and is being rolled from 01/02/2014. In the new module, uploading of SOR, viewing the defect memo and also compliance to defect memo will happen online only. The CST Forms would be in digital formats and hence, printing of Forms on pre-printed stationery would be discontinued. The automatic messages will be delivered (through email & SMS) about status of SOR (Hold, Approved, Rejected etc.) to the dealers.

The Maharashtra VAT Department has introduced issue of e-CST declarations w.e.f. 1-February-2014. Refer following documents –

• Trade Circular 4T of 2014 dated 28-01-2014 – Procedure for submission of application for CST e-declarations / certificates and issuance of the same electronically.
• e-CST Declaration Dealer Instruction Sheet
• FAQ for dealers requesting for CST Forms 
  
• New e-CST Application Form (SOR)

(Article is Complied Jointly by CA Sandeep Kanoi & CA Lalit Bajaj)