Manual Scrutiny of Service Tax Returns from 1st August, 2015

The Cen­tral Board of Excise and Cus­toms had issued detailed guide­lines in 2009 to its field for­ma­tions on con­duct­ing detailed man­u­al scruti­ny of ser­vice tax returns. In view of the legal changes brought about by the Neg­a­tive List based tax­a­tion of ser­vices and admin­is­tra­tive changes like cre­ation of sep­a­rate Com­mis­sion­rates for Audit etc, these guide­lines have been revised and will come into oper­a­tion from 1–8‑2015.

In an era of self assess­ment of tax lia­bil­i­ty by the assessees, com­pli­ance ver­i­fi­ca­tion assumes greater impor­tance. Scruti­ny is one of the three prongs of com­pli­ance ver­i­fi­ca­tion, the oth­er two being audit and anti eva­sion. Pri­or to the reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Com­mis­sion­er­ates, all these three prongs were being han­dled by a sin­gle Com­mis­sion­er­ate. With the cre­ation of sep­a­rate Audit Com­mis­sion­rates, the Exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er­ates will focus on scruti­ny and anti eva­sion work.

The selec­tion of returns for detailed scruti­ny would be on the basis of risk para­me­ters which would be cen­tral­ly gen­er­at­ed. The scruti­ny would be entire­ly done in the depart­men­tal premis­es, based on assess­ment relat­ed doc­u­ments obtained from the assesses.

Down­load Man­u­al for Scruti­ny of Ser­vice Tax 2009 attached.