CE - Provisional Assessment Finalisation - Interest Liability? Poor Law Drafting costs Revenue Dear

The provisions are drafted by some "briliant" minds in the revenue boards. They draft some bad law and it continues for some decades. Finally SC decides and the law is further amended. Which creates further disharmony with some other existing provisions and litigation continues. I wonder sometime whether the political leader ship ever read these drafts in parliament or outside? Whether "rice" is an agriculture product - needed a letter from Chief Minister to Central Minister and then it is clarified. Industry by and large is not so fortunate? If we go by the central excise and service tax rules/acts - there are number of provisions which go against each other both in objeective and substance? Can we not think of reviewing the laws periodically and amend them based on the feed back from trade and court judgements.

It appears that the political leadership goes by the presentation by the revenue boards on the revenue struck in the litigations without questioning the reasons behind this mess? In most of the cases, it would be the learned board itself who created this inadvertantly. SOme times they forgot to remove "Nepal" from some of the notifications ior forget to include "importers" to get registration or bad drafting rrsults in "taken or utilised" in rule 14 of cenvat credit rules etc and our courts scan the dictionaries to decifer the meaning of "and" "or".
Recently I was going through an audit objection. There is a C & F agent who is pying service tax on gross valuecharged which include commsission, rent, re-inbursement of expenses etc. Officers are of the view that he should not pay the service tax on the reimbursements and recipient should not take credit. Earlier the C & F was not charging service tax on re-imbursements and he was asked to pay on all. This is how litigation on both hands.

Arbind Aggarwal

Arbind Aggarwal 18/02/2015