Procedure for Surrender and Cancellation of Service Tax Registration

1. Attention of the trade is invited to the provisions of sub-rules (7) and (8) of the Rule 4 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994, which provide for surrender of  registration certificate in the case of an assessee who ceases to provide the taxable services for which he is registered. The Superintendent of Central Excise after ensuring that the assessee has paid all the Service Tax dues may cancel such registration.

2. Taking note of the fact that large number of assesses are inactive and number of applications are pending for surrender/cancellation of service tax registration, following guidelines are issued detailing the procedure to be followed in t is regard 

3. An application for surrender/cancellation of the service tax registration is to be made for following reasons:- 

a)  Assessee's turnover is below the threshold limit. 

b) Change in the constitution of assessee, say from partnership to company or amalgamations, 

c)  Death of proprietor. 

d) Assessee closing down the taxable service business. 

e) Assessee has taken centralized registration and hence wants to surrender his other previous multiple registrations pertaining to various branches. 

f)  Assessee has shifted its office from the jurisdiction of one  Division/Commissionerate to another and instead of requesting for change in the location code and premises code of the assessee, a fresh registration has been taken for the new address. Therefore, a need arises for surrender of the old registration. 

g) Due to technical error in the system, the assessee has been issued multiple registrations for the same address. In that case, the additional registrations are required to be surrendered. 

4. Assessees who wish to surrender their registration certificates shall file their application on-line using the ACES module on www.aces,gov.in. On successful filing of the online application, the assessee shall submit the copies of documents mentioned at para 5 along with signed copy of the printout of the application generated by the ACES System to the jurisdictional Group Superintendent or Superintendent(s) of the Registration Cell' in the concerned Divisional office. For, surrendering application, submitted by an assessee who had obtained registration 01.04.2010 and not migrated to ACES, requirement of online filing of has been done away with and for this purpose the procedure given in para 8.1 below may be referred to. 

5.  All the assessees falling under category (a) to (g) of Para 3 are required to submit following documents: 

(i) Application Form & Undertaking to surrender the Service Tax Registration 

(ii) Copies of last six ST-3 returns filed with the department from the date of taking registration till the date of surrender but up to a maximum of last six returns 

Where the assessee has not filed ST-3 returns for the period mentioned above, on account of the reasons that the turnover is within the threshold limit of small service providers exemption then it is not necessary for him to file fresh return for surrender purpose only. He can apply for waiver of penalty under Rule 7C of STR for non-filing of returns. Instructions have been issued for waiver of penalty for non filing of return where total turnover was less than threshold limit. The fact of non-filing of return should be clearly mentioned in the undertaking. 

(iii) Copies of Profit & Loss account and Balance Sheet from the date of taking registration to the date of surrender, but for a maximum of last 3 financial years only. However, if Balance Sheet or Profit & Loss Statement has not been prepared, the applicant may submit copies of Income Tax Return for the said period. If said return has also not been filed then applicant should provide appropriate evidence like Bank Statement so as to enable the department to verify the reason stated for surrender. [Not required for category (e) & (g)] 

(iv) Details of Show Cause Notice pending adjudication, details of confirmed demands, details of court cases, details of audit conducted, etc. as per Annexure-II. 

5.2 In case of an assessee falling under category (c) of para 3 above, the death certificate of the proprietor needs to be enclosed along with the application form. 

5.3 In case of change of constitution [category (b) of para 3] the necessary documents like Partnership deed or Articles of Association etc. showing change of constitution may be enclosed along with application for surrender. In case of merger or acquisition necessary documents such as Order passed by the Hon'ble High Court or Article of Association to that effect, may be enclosed alongwith the application of surrender, 

5.4 In case of assessee taking centralized registration [category (e) of para 3], the copy of centralized registration certificate, showing the premises for which surrender application is being submitted, should also be enclosed along with the application for surrender. 

5.5 For the cases covered by category (g) of Para 3 above, copy of registration certificate for which the applicant wants to continue with should also be submitted 'with the application for surrender. 

6. After submission of the required documents as per above details the Superintendent concerned may require further information like reconciliation of the income shown in the Profit & Loss Account with the taxable income declared in ST-3 return However, reconciliation information would not be necessary in case of taking centralized registration or in case of shifting of office from one jurisdiction to other jurisdiction or in case of technical error resulting in multiple registration or in case of turnover as per income statement/Profit & Loss account being below the exemption limit. 

7. The assessee should submit the required documents with proper indexing of enclosures. As far as possible all these documents will be verified by the Superintendent or Inspector at the time of its submission itself. In case of any deficiency , the same shall be informed to the assessee at the time of receipt of the documents. It may be noted that if the assessee fails to submit the complete set of hard copies within 15 days of submission of online application, it is liable to be rejected. 

8.1 In case the applicant has taken Service Tax registration prior to 01.04.2010 and has not migrated to ACES system, it is not necessary for such assesses to migrate to ACES for surrendering their registration. They can apply for surrender of registration by a manual application, alongwith other documents as required, without filing the online surrender application. Instruction have been issued to liberally cancel the registration for assessee who had taken registration in the past when there was no threshold limit. Further, in those cases the intimation regarding the cancellation shall be sent by post. 

8.2 The assessees who have misplaced the User-id & Password for transacting in ACES may approach the 'Help Desk' of the respective Division along with filled in application Form (format enclosed as Annexure-III) for generating T-pin. Using the T-pin generated by the System, which will be received by the applicant through e-mail. 

9. The Superintendent shall process the application for surrender of registration and after successful cancellation of the registration, will inform the assessee through e-mail, and then the assessees can make surrendering application through ACES. 

10. In case of any difficulty, Assistant Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner of the concerned Division may be approached for the resolution of grievance. 

11. Surrender Application shall be accepted in person between 3.00 to 5.00 PM in the division, the trade association are requested to bring the contents of this Trade notice to the attention of their members, in particular and the trade in general.

Download Notice 40/2013