Excise Assessee proposing to use digital signatures shall intimate details to the Deprtment of Central Excise

Regard­ing Dig­i­tal­ly signed invoic­es in Cen­tral Excise and Ser­vice Tax-Con­di­tions, safe­guards and pro­ce­dures — 18/2015 — Dat­ed 6–7‑2015 — Ser­vice Tax

G.S.R.  (E).____In pur­suance of sub-rule (5) of rule 10 and sub-rule (9) of rule 11 of the Cen­tral Excise Rules, 2002 made under sec­tion 37 of the Cen­tral Excise Act, 1944 (1 of 1944) and sub-rule (5) of rule 5 and sub-rule (2) of rule 4C of the Ser­vice Tax Rules, 1994 made under sub-sec­tion (1) read with sub-sec­tion (2) of sec­tion 94 of the Finance Act, 1994 (32 of 1994), the Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms here­by spec­i­fies the fol­low­ing con­di­tions, safe­guards and pro­ce­dures for issue of invoic­es, pre­serv­ing records in elec­tron­ic form and authen­ti­ca­tion of records and invoic­es by dig­i­tal sig­na­tures, namely:-

1.      Every assessee propos­ing to use dig­i­tal sig­na­ture shall use Class 2 or Class 3 Dig­i­tal Sig­na­ture Cer­tifi­cate duly issued by the Cer­ti­fy­ing Author­i­ty in India.

2.      (i) Every assessee propos­ing to use dig­i­tal sig­na­tures shall inti­mate the fol­low­ing details to the juris­dic­tion­al Deputy Com­mis­sion­er or Assis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Cen­tral Excise, at least fif­teen days in advance:-

a)    name, e‑mail id, office address and des­ig­na­tion of the per­son autho­rised to use the dig­i­tal sig­na­ture certificate;

b)   name of the Cer­ti­fy­ing Authority;

c)    date of issue of dig­i­tal cer­tifi­cate and valid­i­ty of the dig­i­tal sig­na­ture with a copy of the cer­tifi­cate issued by the Cer­ti­fy­ing Author­i­ty along with the com­plete address of the said Authority:

          Pro­vid­ed that in case of any change in the details sub­mit­ted to the juris­dic­tion­al Deputy Com­mis­sion­er or Assis­tant Com­mis­sion­er, com­plete details shall be sub­mit­ted afresh with­in fif­teen days of such change.

            (ii)  Every assessee already using dig­i­tal sig­na­ture shall inti­mate to the juris­dic­tion­al Deputy Com­mis­sion­er or Assis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Cen­tral Excise the above details with­in fif­teen days of issue of this notification.

3.      Every assessee who opts to main­tain records in elec­tron­ic form and who has more than one fac­to­ry or ser­vice tax reg­is­tra­tion shall main­tain sep­a­rate elec­tron­ic records for each fac­to­ry or each ser­vice tax registration.

4.      Every assessee who opts to main­tain records in elec­tron­ic form, shall on request by a Cen­tral Excise Offi­cer, pro­duce the spec­i­fied records in elec­tron­ic form and invoic­es through e‑mail or on a spec­i­fied stor­age device in an elec­tron­i­cal­ly read­able for­mat for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the authen­tic­i­ty of the doc­u­ment and the request for such records and invoic­es shall be spec­i­fied in the let­ter or e‑mail by the Cen­tral Excise Officer.

5.      A Cen­tral Excise Offi­cer, dur­ing an enquiry, inves­ti­ga­tion or audit, in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of sec­tion 14 of the Cen­tral Excise Act, 1944 and as made applic­a­ble to Ser­vice Tax as per the pro­vi­sions con­tained in sec­tion 83 of the Finance Act, 1994, may direct an assessee to fur­nish print­outs of the records in elec­tron­ic form and invoic­es and may resume print­outs of such records and invoic­es after ver­i­fy­ing the cor­rect­ness of the same in elec­tron­ic for­mat; and after the print outs of such records in elec­tron­ic form have been signed by the assessee or any oth­er per­son autho­rised by the assessee in this regard, if so request­ed by such Cen­tral Excise Officer.

6.      Every assessee who opts to main­tain records in elec­tron­ic form shall ensure that appro­pri­ate back­up of records in elec­tron­ic form is main­tained and pre­served for a peri­od of 5 years imme­di­ate­ly after the finan­cial year to which such records pertain.

7.      This noti­fi­ca­tion shall come into force on the date of its pub­li­ca­tion in the Offi­cial Gazette.

[F. No. 224/44/2014-CX.6]

(ROHAN)

Under Sec­re­tary to the Gov­ern­ment of India

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