Hyderabad, September 18: Laying out the roadmap for the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) from April 2010, as proposed earlier by the Ministry of Finance, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) launched Automation of Central Excise and Service Tax (ACES) in the Hyderabad Zone here today.
Hyderabad Zone Chief Commissioner Ahmed Hussain launched the automated procedure at the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry auditorium.
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch, Ahmed Hussain said the Centre was keen on rolling out the GST, which will replace excise duty and service tax with a composite taxation system. “Till now we have been limited to capture of returns and have not had a system that automates our work. This will now be done by ACES,’’ he said.
Elaborating on the GST system, Hussain said that apart from the change in nomenclature, there would be a major increase in the number of assessees: “In the GST — a composite taxation system — the State Government assessees would become Central Government assessees and vice-versa.’’ According to the CBEC officials, apart from laying out the roadmap, ACES would also be beneficial in harnessing information technology to improve taxpayer services as well as internal efficiency.
“With ACES, both the taxpayers’ time and cost of complying with the tax provisions will come down in a big way,’’ said CBEC ADG (Systems) DP Dash, during his presentation to employees of features of the software.
ACES has already been tried and tested through pilot projects in Belapur, Bangalore LTU, Bhubaneswar- II and Chennai LTU, among other places.
Facilitation centres have been set up in the city and assessees may contact their jurisdictional range and divisional officers for further information or call up national toll free number 1800-425-4251.
—Agencies