I believe I am an honest taxpayer. And I have enough papers to prove it. So in due course of time, a day arrived when I had to go further and become an honest service-tax payer. I thus braced myself for a long-drawn battle with the system to get a service tax registration number. And since I have already made the claim to being an honest taxpayer, I did not wish to approach the matter through a tout/agent.
At the outset, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that the whole system of getting a registration is now online. Wow. One would be tempted to say. That it took me seven visits to the office in spite of the system being online (or rather, because of it) is another matter. Anyway, to come to the point, the procedure sounds deceptively simple.
1. Go the aces.gov.in homepage and create an account for yourself. You then get a login ID and a password - the customary stuff.
2. Then you login and fill up a form called ST-1 and click on 'Submit'. Then take a printout of the form... wait. Here's the first catch. If you have to really take a printout, you have to achieve quite above-average literacy in the world of computers, because there is NO straightforward method to either get a printout of ST-1 or getting a PDF version of it. But I managed that.
3. Then one has to go to the service tax office, wait in an interminably long queue (and it could takes several such visits - it took me three) and present the ST-1 with supporting documents (PAN, addr proof etc.) and submit it.
4. The officer promises you that the approval of ST-1 will happen in seven working days. Which means you have to wait for a week-and-a-half, and just hope that other meaningless holidays like Mahashivratri don't make the wait longer.
5. It comes as no surprise that nothing happens after seven (or many more) working days. I went after sixteen, and had to create a mild form of satyagrah in the office to get the officer to approve my application in front of me.
6. Once approved, one simply has to login again and take a printout of the much-desired and precious entity called Form ST-2. Child's play, one would imagine. But no.
7. When I eagerly logged in and, fingers quaking in anticipation, clicked on the link called 'View Latest ST-2', it asked for dates. From and To date.
Posts
