Sales Tax Review

December  2007

TRADE CIRCULAR.

No.VAT/MMB-1006/152/Adm-3 

Gentlemen/Sir/Madam, 

          The Hon’ble High Court has fixed the hearing of Writ petition No. 3203 of 2006 regarding Form 704 in the month of January 2008.  Therefore, date of filing of Form 704 is required to be extended.  Accordingly, the date for filing of Form 704 in respect of the year 2005-06 is hereby extended to 31^st January, 2008. 

2. Date of filing of the Audit Report in Form 704 for the year 2006-07 is 31^st December 2007. This date is also extended upto 31^st January 2008.

3. Maharashtra Tax Laws (Levy, Amendment and Validation) Act, 2007 (Mah. Act No. XXV of 2007) has come into force from 5^th August 2007 by which amendments to section 61 of the Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act, 2002 are made.  It is decided administratively to give concessions to the dealers on following two points,-

1. Audit of the dealers who have not done their audit u/s. 61 and not submitted their Form 704 till today can get their accounts audited by “a Cost Accountant within the meaning of the Cost & Works Accountants Act, 1959” in respect of the years 2005-06 and 2006-07.

2. Government authorities who have not submitted their Form 704 till today are not required to submit their Form 704 now whether in respect of the year 2005-06 or 2006-07.  These authorities as defined in the Act are as follows:

“Departments of the Union Government, any Department of any State Government, local authorities, the Railway Administration as defined under the Indian Railways Act, 1989, the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited and the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation constituted under the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950.”

4. If any discrepancies are shown in the Audit Report regarding the relevant underlying returns already filed by the dealer, then a revised return is to be filed.  In such cases, the last date for filing of this revised return is now extended to 29^th February 2008.  No legal action will be taken against the dealers who abide by the above mentioned revised deadlines.

5. Though the dates are extended, the dealers are advised to submit Form 704 as early as possible before the extended date to avoid last minute rush.  The Chartered Accountants and Cost Accountants should phase out their work in such a manner that the submission of audit reports in form 704 is spread over the extended period, if not already submitted, so that there will not be any inconvenience to any one.

6. In the year 2005-06, dealers were holding old B.S.T.R.C.Nos. which must be shown in the audit report form 704.  From 1.4.2006 these numbers have been replaced by TIN.  It is requested that while filling Form 704, the corresponding TIN should also be shown in the right hand top corner of the front page the form in bold letters with borders in red ink as shown below:

This will facilitate the department to update the dealer’s data and will also be helpful to the dealers.

7. Dealers are also requested to submit their e-mail addresses at the time of filing the audit report in form-704.

8. In areas other than Mumbai, form 704 will be accepted in the office of the respective Joint Commissioner of Sales Tax (Adm).  In the places where the office of the Joint Commissioner of Sales Tax is not located, it will be accepted in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax (Adm) or Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax (Adm), as the case may be.

9. This circular cannot be made use of for legal interpretation of provisions of law as it is clarificatory in nature. If any member of the trade has any doubt, he may refer the matter to this office for further clarification.

10. You are requested to bring the contents of this circular to the notice of the members of your association.

Yours faithfully,
  (SANJAY BHATIA)
 Commissioner of Sales Tax,
  Maharashtra State, Mumbai.