919/01/2010-CX, Dated: 23/03/2010

1. Access Control of Users (ACL)
2. Registration (REGN): Registration of assessees of Central Excise & Service Tax including on-line amendment.
3. Returns (RET): Electronic filing of Central Excise & Service Tax Returns
4. CLI: Electronic filing of claims, intimations and permissions  by assessees and their processing by the departmental officers
5. Refund (REF): Electronic filing of Refund Claims and their processing
6. Provisional Assessment (PRA): Electronic filing of request for provisional assessment and its processing by the departmental officers.
7. Assessee Running Account
8. Dispute Settlement Resolution (DSR): Show Cause Notices, Personal Hearing Memos, Adjudication Orders, Appellate and related processes.
9. Audit Module
10. Export Module for processing export related documents

1. The existing assessees will not have to take fresh registrations. They will have to only register with the ACES application. This can be done in the following manner :

2. Existing assessees should note that they should register with ACES by following the procedure at (1) above and they should not register with ACES through the direct method, meant for new assessees, as discussed under (a) above. They should also not fill-in registration forms again as it will lead to allotment of new registration numbers by the system.
3. Assessees should ensure that their contact details in the department’s registration data base are updated to include their valid and current e-mail ids, otherwise they will not receive any such mail. Those assessees who have not yet furnished their email IDs to the department or even after furnishing the ID have not received the TPIN mail from ACES are advised to contact the jurisdictional Range Officers or LTU Client Executives and furnish their email IDs in writing. The officer will thereafter incorporate the email ID in the ACES registration database of the assessee and arrange to send the TPIN mail to the assessee’s email ID.

1. This category of registration is given in ACES to any individual, firm or company which requires to transact with the Central Excise or Service Tax  Department, though not an assessee such as (a) merchant exporter, (b) co-noticee, (c) refund applicant, (d) persons who have failed to obtain CE/ST registration as required under the law and against whom the Department has initiated proceedings and (e) persons who are required to tender any payment under CE/ST Act /Rules. The Non-assessees are not required to file any tax returns.
2. Where such persons desire to seek non-assessee registration they follow same steps as in case of new assessee except that while choosing the registration form in step (vii) they have to choose and fill in the Non-assessee form.
3. In case the assessee is taking such registration for claiming any refund or rebate it is mandatory to furnish his/her valid PAN.
4. A Non-assessee registration can also be done by the designated officer of the Commissionerate, on behalf of the non-assessee.

1. The consent form will have to be submitted manually by the New LTU assessees to the jurisdictional LTU office which will be processed off line
2. The approved consent form will be uploaded by the competent officer of the Group LTU (GLTU) into ACES
3. Any new unit of an existing LTU, which applies for registration with ACES will be automatically attached with the LTU Commissionerate based upon PAN details in the registration form
4. As soon as the new or existing unit is attached with the LTU Commissionerate, a suitable intimation will be automatically sent by the ACES to the existing jurisdictional Commissionerate and the pending items of work will be transferred to the LTU Commissionerate
5. For existing LTU assessees, the process of registration is same as explained in Sub Para (b) above.

1. At the time of making entry in the electronic format of the relevant return, the software does some preliminary validation for ensuring correctness of data, either concurrently or at the time of saving / submitting the return. This validation process is automated. The user is prompted by the application software to correct the particulars entered wherever required. In respect of certain entries, although the application alerts the assessee about any entry found erroneous or inconsistent, as per the automated validation process, the assessee is still allowed to proceed further to complete data entry of the return and finally submit it electronically. But in some cases the assessees are not allowed to proceed further unless the error indicated is corrected.

2. A return filed electronically is subject to automatic verification process by the application and defective returns are marked to the departmental officer for review and correction. While reviewing the return the officer may seek some clarification from the assessee, call for some information, records or documents which should be furnished by the assessee. In case of review and correction of returns by the departmental officers, assesses will receive a message from the application and they can log in to the application to view the reviewed returns online.

3. Returns, captured off-line using the Downloadable utility and uploaded later on, are further subjected to certain validation checks. Processing of uploaded returns, using the off-line versions, is done at the end of one business day and the status can be viewed by the assessees under the ‘VIEW STATUS’ link under ‘RET’ module. Status is described as ‘UPLOADED’, ‘FILED’ or ‘REJECTED’ and they denote as follows: 

4. There is no provision in ACES application to allow assessees to make corrections to the returns filed by them. Once the return is accepted by the system as successfully ‘filed’, no modification can be made by the assessee. However, if the return is rejected, the assessee can correct the errors and upload it again. The assessees are, therefore, advised to take utmost care while fill-in in the returns. They may, however, bring it to the notice of the departmental officers.

1. In terms of Notification No 04/2010-Central Excise (N.T.) dated the 19th February, 2010, an assessee, who has paid total duty of rupees ten lakhs or more including the amount of duty paid by utilization of CENVAT credit in the preceding financial year, is required to file the monthly or quarterly return, as the case may be, electronically, under sub-rule (1) of Rule 12 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 and deposit the duty electronically through internet banking under sub-rule (1) of Rule 8 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002.

2. Similarly, in terms of Notification No. 01/2010 – Service Tax dated the 19th February, 2010, an assessee who has paid a total Service Tax of rupees ten lakhs or more including the amount paid by utilization of CENVAT credit, in the preceding financial year, is required to file the return electronically under sub-rule (2) of Rule 7 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994 and deposit the service Tax liable to be paid by him electronically, through internet banking under sub-rule (2) of Rule 6 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994.

3. The earlier facility of e-filing on the website (http://exciseandservicetax.nic.in), as provided in the CBEC Circular No.791/24/2004-CX. Dated 1.6.2004 is no more available and the assessees are required to file their returns online or by uploading the downloadable off-line return utilities to the new ACES website (http://www.aces.gov.in). Data structure for writing programmes to cull out the required return data (currently available for Dealer return) from the assessees’s computers in XML format has also been provided. Such schema for ER 2 and ER 1 returns will be published in due course. For complete details and instructions, assessees can visit the aforesaid website. Assessees who are required to or opted to file returns electronically but are unable to file electronically, for any technical difficulty in filing the returns, on account of difficulties at the department’s end viz. server/application is down or due to some defect in the software, should file their returns manually within the due date.

1. For e-payment, assessees should open a net banking account with one of the authorized banks (currently there are 28 banks, list of which is available on the EASIEST (Electronic Accounting System in Excise and service Tax) website of CBEC, maintained by NSDL (https://cbec.nsdl.com/EST/). Payment through ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank can be done by assesses for select Commissionerates only, list of which is published in the aforesaid EASIEST website. Payment through all other authorized banks can be made for all Commissionerates.  

2. For effecting payment, assessees can access the ACES website (http://www.aces.gov.in/) and click on the e-payment link that will take them to the EASIEST portal (https://cbec.nsdl.com/EST/) or they can directly visit the EASIEST portal.

3. Procedure for e-Payment:

1. To pay Excise Duty and Service Tax online, the assessee has to enter the 15 digit Assessee Code allotted by the department under erstwhile SACER/SAPS or the current application ACES.
2. There will be an online check on the validity of the Assessee Code entered.
3. If the Assessee code is valid, then corresponding assessee details like name, address, Commissionerate Code etc. as present in the Assessee Code Master will be displayed.
4. Based on the Assessee Code, the duty / tax i.e. Central Excise duty or Service Tax to be paid will be automatically selected.
5. The assessee is required to select the type of duty / tax to be paid by clicking on Select Accounting Codes for Excise or Select Accounting Codes for Service Tax, depending on the type of duty / tax to be paid.
6. At a time the assessee can select up to six Accounting Codes.
7. The assessee should also select the bank through which payment is to be made.
8. On submission of data entered, a confirmation screen will be displayed. If the taxpayer confirms the data entered in the screen, it will be directed to the net-banking site of the bank selected.
9. The taxpayer will login to the net-banking site with the user id/ password, provided by the bank for net-banking purpose, and will enter payment details at the bank site.
10. On successful payment, a challan counterfoil will be displayed containing CIN, payment details and bank name through which e-payment has been made. This counterfoil is proof of payment made.

1. It is the legal responsibility of the assessees, who are required to file returns, to file it within the due date as prescribed under law.  The electronic filing of returns is mandatory for select class of Central Excise and Service Tax assessees, as mentioned in Notification No 04/2010-Central Excise (N.T.) dated the 19^th February, 2010, and Notification No. 01/2010 – Service Tax dated the 19^th February, 2010 respectively.  Other assessees can also use ACES and file their returns electronically. It may, however, be noted that merely uploading the returns will not be considered as returns having been filed with the department. A return will be considered as filed, when the same is successfully accepted by the application as ‘Filed’ and the relevant date for determining the date of filing of return will be the date of uploading of such successfully ‘filed’ returns. In case a return is ‘rejected’ by the application, the date of uploading of the rejected return will not be considered as the date of filing, rather the date of uploading of the successfully ‘filed’, return (after the assessee carries out necessary corrections and uploads it again) will be considered as the actual date of filing.

2. In case the assessee experiences any difficulty in transacting in ACES such as filing of return, the assessees may lodge a complaint with the ACES Service Desk or the department  by e-mail and/or by telephone, details of which are given below and obtain a ticket no. as an acknowledgement from the department. However, mere lodging of complaints with the ACES service desk will not be a valid ground to justify late filing of returns. If the difficulty is not on account of problems at the assessee’s end, and can be clearly attributed to the department’s IT infrastructure such as problems in accessing CBEC’s ACES application due to server, network or application being down, proportionate time will be deducted from the date of uploading of successfully ‘filed’ returns to ascertain the actual date and time of filing of the return. Since the department maintains logs of such technical failures, in case of any dispute, the decision of the department will be final.