How To eFile Central Excise and Service Tax ( India )

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Efiling is the process of electronically filling of Service Tax returns by the assesses from their office, residence or anywhere through Internet. For efiling, assesses can go to this site.

Assesses having a 15 digit STP code and falling under the following categories can avail of the facility of electronic filing.

a) Telegraph Services (TGH)
b) Telephones (TSU);
c) Life Insurance Services(LIS),;
d) Insurance Auxiliary (IAX),
e) General Insurance Business (GIB);
f) Stockbrokers (STB);
g) Advertising Agencies (ADV) and
h) Courier Services (COU).
i) Banking and Financial (BFN)
j) Custom House Agents (CHA)

e filing in not compulsory, its just an alternative of manual filing of returns.

Registration Process

To transact business on ACES a user has to first register himself/herself with ACES through a process called ‘Registration with ACES’. This registration is not a statutory registration as envisaged in Acts/Rules governing Central Excise and Service Tax but helps the application in recognizing the bonafide users. Described below are steps for taking registration by a new assessee, existing assessee, non-assessee and a Large Tax Payer Unit (LTU).

(a) New Assessee

1. The user needs to log onto the system, through internet at here.
2. He/she chooses the Central Excise/Service Tax button from the panel appearing on the left of the webpage.

3. Clicks the button “New Users Click here to Register with ACES” in the Log-in screen that appears after clicking Central Excise/Service Tax button.

4. Fills in and submits the form “Registration with ACES”, by furnishing a self-chosen user ID and e-mail ID. User ID, once chosen is final and cannot be changed by the assessee in future.

5. The system will check for availability of the chosen User ID and then generate a password and send it by e-mail, mentioned by him/her in the Form.

6. ACES provides assistance of ‘Know your location code’ for choosing correct jurisdictional office.

7. The user then re-logs-in and proceeds with the statutory registration with Central Excise/Service Tax, by filling-in the appropriate Form namely A-1, A-2 or ST-1 etc. by clicking the “Reg” link in the Menu bar that appears on the top of the screen. For security reasons, the password should be changed immediately.

8. The system instantaneously generates an acknowledgment number after which the registration request goes to the jurisdictional Assistant or Deputy Commissioner (AC/DC). Depending on the instructions in force, assessees may be required to submit certain documents to the department for verification. After due processing, the AC/DC, in case of Central Excise and Superintendent /Commissioner (for centralized registration only), in case of Service Tax, generates Registration Certificate (RC) and a message to this effect is sent to the assessees electronically. The assessee can view this and take a print-out of this.

9. Depending on the option chosen by the assessee, the signed copy of the RC can be sent by post or can be collected by assessee in person.

10. While submitting registration form, if the assessee makes a mistake in choosing a wrong jurisdiction (Commissionerate/Division/ Range), ACES provides a facility to the AC/DC to forward the application to the correct jurisdictional officer to issue registration and a message to this effect is sent to the assessee for information.

11. The registration number will be same as the current 15-digit format with minor change such as

For-PAN based Assessees

1-10 digits PAN of the Assessee

11-12 digitsEM (Excise Manufacturer), ED (Excise Dealer), SD (Service Tax)

13-15Systems generated alphanumeric serial number

For non-PAN based assessees

1-4 digits TEMP

5-10 Systems generated alpha numeric number

11-12 EM (Excise Manufacturer) or ED (Excise Dealer), SD (Service Tax)

13-15Systems generated alphanumeric serial number

(b) Existing Assessee

1. The existing assessees will not have to take fresh registrations. They will have to only register with the ACES application. This can be done in the following manner :

* ACES application will automatically send mails to the e-mail IDs of the assessee, as available in the existing registration data base, indicating a TPIN number, and password. The mail will contain a hyperlink to the website.
* Assessee clicks on the hyperlink and is taken to ACES application
* Assessee submits the form after filling the requisite information including the password provided in the e-mail, a new User ID and new password. User ID, once chosen is final and cannot be changed by the assessee in future.
* On successful registration with ACES, the assessee can transact business through ACES.

1. Existing assessees should note that they should register with ACES by following the procedure at (1) above and they should not register with ACES through the direct method, meant for new assessees, as discussed under (a) above. They should also not fill-in registration forms again as it will lead to allotment of new registration numbers by the system.
2. Assessees should ensure that their contact details in the department’s registration data base are updated to include their valid and current e-mail ids, otherwise they will not receive any such mail. Those assessees who have not yet furnished their email IDs to the department or even after furnishing the ID have not received the TPIN mail from ACES are advised to contact the jurisdictional Range Officers or LTU Client Executives and furnish their email IDs in writing. The officer will thereafter incorporate the email ID in the ACES registration database of the assessee and arrange to send the TPIN mail to the assessee’s email ID.

(c) Non-Assessee

1. This category of registration is given in ACES to any individual, firm or company which requires to transact with the Central Excise or Service Tax Department, though not an assessee such as (a) merchant exporter, (b) co-noticee, (c) refund applicant, (d) persons who have failed to obtain CE/ST registration as required under the law and against whom the Department has initiated proceedings and (e) persons who are required to tender any payment under CE/ST Act /Rules. The Non-assessees are not required to file any tax returns.
2. Where such persons desire to seek non-assessee registration they follow same steps as in case of new assessee except that while choosing the registration form in step (vii) they have to choose and fill in the Non-assessee form.
3. In case the assessee is taking such registration for claiming any refund or rebate it is mandatory to furnish his/her valid PAN.
4. A Non-assessee registration can also be done by the designated officer of the Commissionerate, on behalf of the non-assessee.

E-filing of Returns

The assesses can electronically file statutory returns of Central Excise and Service Tax by choosing one of the two facilities being offered by the department at present: (a) they can file it online, or (b) download the off-line return utilities which can be filled-in off-line and uploaded to the system through the internet.

a. Steps for preparing and filing returns

(i) Returns can be prepared and filed on line by selecting the ‘File Return’ option under RET module after logging into the ACES.

(ii) All validations are thrown up during the preparation of the return in this mode and the status of the return filed using the online mode is instantaneously shown by ACES.

(iii) Returns can also be prepared and filed off-line. Assessee downloads the Offline return preparation utility available here (Under Download).

(iv) Prepares the return offline using this utility. The return preparation utility contains preliminary validations which are thrown up by the utility from time to time.

(v) Assessee logs in using the User ID and password.

(vi) Selects RET from the main menu and uploads the return. Instructions for using the offline utilities are given in detail in the Help section, under ‘Download’ link and assessees are advised to follow them.

(vii) Returns uploaded through this procedure are validated by the ACES before acceptance into the system which may take up to one business day. Assessee can track the status of the return by selecting the appropriate option in the RET sub menu. The status will appear as “uploaded” meaning under process by ACES, “Filed” meaning successfully accepted by the system or “Rejected” meaning the ACES has rejected the return due to validation error. The rejected returns can be resubmitted after corrections.

(viii) Once the Central Excise returns are filed online in ACES or uploaded to the system using the off-line utility, the same can not be modified or canceled by the assessee. The Service Tax returns, however, can be modified once as per rules up to 90 days from the date of filing the initial return.

(ix) Self-assessed CE returns, after scrutiny by the competent officer, may result into modification. Both the ‘Original’ and the ‘Reviewed’ return can be viewed by the assessee online.

b. Using XML Schema for filing Dealers Return

Currently, the ACES Application allows on-line filing of Quarterly Returns by the Registered Dealers accessing the site www.aces.gov.in by using the excel utility. Some assesses who use their own software application in their offices find the process of manual entry of data in the excel format of Returns as a time consuming and avoidable exercise. A new feature of XML schema has now been introduced. Now using the schema, assessees, after making necessary modifications in their own software application, can generate their return from their application. Below mentioned steps elaborate the process to prepare, validate and upload the Dealer’s Return.

Steps to prepare the XML

Step 1: ACES application accepts the return in XML format. Prepare the Dealer return XML and validate it against the schema ACES_DLR.xsd provided.

Step 2: Login to the ACES application and upload the XML for processing. XML will be again validated against same XSD again before processing.

XML File only will be considered valid if it satisfies the requirements of the schema (predefined XSD) with which it has been associated. These requirements typically include such constraints as:

Elements and attributes that must/may be included, and their permitted structure

The structure as specified by regular expression syntax

Instructions for using the schema are given in detail in the Help section, under ‘Download’ link. Assessees are advised to follow them.

e-payment

1. For e-payment, assessees should open a net banking account with one of the authorized banks (currently there are 28 banks, list of which is available on the EASIEST (Electronic Accounting System in Excise and service Tax) website of CBEC, maintained by NSDL (https://cbec.nsdl.com/EST/). Payment through ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank can be done by assesses for select Commissionerates only, list of which is published in the aforesaid EASIEST website. Payment through all other authorized banks can be made for all Commissionerates.

2. For effecting payment, assessees can access the ACES website and click on the e-payment link that will take them to the EASIEST portal or they can directly visit the EASIEST portal.

Procedure for e-Payment

1. To pay Excise Duty and Service Tax online, the assessee has to enter the 15 digit Assessee Code allotted by the department under erstwhile SACER/SAPS or the current application ACES.
2. There will be an online check on the validity of the Assessee Code entered.
3. If the Assessee code is valid, then corresponding assessee details like name, address, Commissionerate Code etc. as present in the Assessee Code Master will be displayed.
4. Based on the Assessee Code, the duty / tax i.e. Central Excise duty or Service Tax to be paid will be automatically selected.
5. The assessee is required to select the type of duty / tax to be paid by clicking on Select Accounting Codes for Excise or Select Accounting Codes for Service Tax, depending on the type of duty / tax to be paid.
6. At a time the assessee can select up to six Accounting Codes.
7. The assessee should also select the bank through which payment is to be made.
8. On submission of data entered, a confirmation screen will be displayed. If the taxpayer confirms the data entered in the screen, it will be directed to the net-banking site of the bank selected.
9. The taxpayer will login to the net-banking site with the user id/ password, provided by the bank for net-banking purpose, and will enter payment details at the bank site.
10. On successful payment, a challan counterfoil will be displayed containing CIN, payment details and bank name through which e-payment has been made. This counterfoil is proof of payment made.

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