What Can You Do to Sail Through Service Tax Audit

Service tax audit once imposed cannot be avoided at any cost. However, one can make the process easier to live through by following certain guidelines on compliance.

Pinch and launder as much as you wish; hide and suppress as much as you want; but when the eyes of the sovereign authority falls on dramatic misappropriation, be assured, there is not much you can do but wish upon a falling star for pardon, because the government is sure to make you pay for good. Evasion of duties is a criminal offence that can amount from mild to severe penalties depending upon the nature of evasion, the time period involved and the amount due. When the authority suspects that a certain assessee is involved in non-payment, the concerned individual / entity is slapped with service tax audit. 

The procedure involves a team of appointed professionals to visit the premises of the entity and assess the records of the same thoroughly and completely to determine what the former has been into hiding. The penalties are awarded to the guilty after ascertaining their nature of default which includes complete evasion or, partial evasion where the non-compliant party pays only a certain small part of the due amount. From imposition of a huge amount of fine and interest to cancellation of license or both anything can be expected as an outcome of the assessment. While there is not much that can be done about the outcomes, one can always ensure that further complications are not generated as the procedure is in progress.

For this, the assessee will have to ensure that they do not cause any deliberate problems like hiding figures or, documents or even making any other attempt to thwart the duties of the professionals. If such dramatic obstacles are created by the former, the amount of penalties that can be given out as a result can be far more than what would have been due. Allowing the professionals to work their way and extending complete cooperation is the only way to sail through the process of assessment. Trying to outsmart the attending team will only amount to further difficulties. Considering the fact that trying to seek amnesty through the process is also an option, complete compliance should be embraced as the only route to some relief.

How Easy Can Service Tax Deposit Be

Service tax deposit can now be made through online medium. This has made the process far easier than ever before.

The days of paper work are long past. Natural forest resources of Earth simply cannot handle the requirements of the human race that is running way past a herculean eight billion. Keeping track and record of transactions, payments, receipts etc through manual paper filing is practically an impossibility that not many would like to continue with. Even the traditional rigid governmental procedures of India are beginning to comprehend the dismal consequences of paperwork considering the fact that about a seventh of the world population resides within our restricted boundaries. Dramatic changes in the thinking of the geniuses behind the desk have shown in the form of appreciable outcomes in the one of the most important aspects of the system that can be named as taxation. 

Till very recent times, eligible entities had to make service tax deposit through the manual methods which involved collecting a couple of forms or, more from the concerned vendors, filling it up without mistakes and dropping the same along with the cheques in the registered banks to complete the procedure. Following up is crucial as far as payment of duties is concerned, which again is quite difficult in the traditional manual method. However, at present, the government has ensured E filing of payments which has nullified the requirement of any form of paperwork whatsoever. Here, the concerned assessee is required to log in to the respective website, input their required details, fill in an e form and make a simple bank transfer to complete the payment process.

This is a matter of minutes and can be done from the comfort of one’s own home / office. Tracking of the payment through online medium at the same time, is completely hassle free. An even greater step towards the attempts at complete removal of paperwork from the world of taxation is the move made by the government to convert all filing of returns from manual procedures to electronic. This is to say that, from now on, only E filing of returns will be acceptable and none others. Learning the online method of tax payment is not difficult. Referring to quality websites can help in removing all doubts and confusion about the same.

How to Pay Service Tax Easily

Those days are gone when matters relating to payment of duties to the government were paper centered and time consuming. Manual filing and of taxes and then getting around and handing over some hard earned cash to the government can be tiring and demoralizing at the same time. For a long time in India, the process has been thoroughly manual in nature involving Form TR-6 Challans in specified branches of designated banks. Most small time providers of the land who usually operate in the areas that are yet to understand the benefits of modern facilities, make regular use of this manual procedure to file in their dues.

However, for those who wish to learn about how to pay service tax more easily, should get in tune with the present day improvements that have been introduced in the field. This can be named as the one and only, online option, which tends to make the entire procedure a matter of a few minutes only. In this option, all that the payer is required to do is log in to the concerned site and transfer the due amount to the accounts of the concerned authorities. The rest will fall in place all by itself. 

How Easy is Service Tax Compliance

Not paying your duties may be very easy in India; what matters though is coughing up the punishment sum when all efforts aimed at hiding the skeletons in the closet fail. You will only be a fool to believe that the Central Government which is already struggling with the rupee will consider your case with compassion and let you keep all the cash. Even a few years ago, defaulters of any kind of tax payment were met with severe punishments including heavy fines leading to imprisonment. Such drastic measures as expected had played its share of influence into bullying the evaders to tighten their means and methods of hiding.  

However, with the introduction of VCES, Service tax compliance has become very easy even for the deliberate evaders. The main reason because of which the non compliant parties come out in the open is that, this scheme does not include any severe punishment for the former. The parties are respectfully allowed to pay up within a set period of time through various modes of payment. Depending upon the amount due, the parties can pay their dues in easy installments. Ignoring the call of the authorities to open up to the scheme can become a punishable offence.