P.L.A. - Maintenance of - Central Excise - 8/86-CX. 6

P.L.A. - Maintenance of Circular No. 8/86-CX. 6 Dated 27-3-1986 [From F. No. 205/04/86-CX. 6] Government of India Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) New Delhi Consequent upon the change over to the harmonised system, the question of maintenance of Personal Ledger Account (PLA) under the new Central Excise Tariff has been reviewed by the Board. 2. Under the erstwhile Central Excise Tariff, Personal Ledger Account (PLA) was required to be maintained tariff item-wise. In this connection Rule 173G of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 govern the procedure to be followed by the assessee for maintaining PLA and for making credits and debits therewith. While under the aforesaid rule, the assessee was required to keep a separate account for each category of the assessable goods, Collector was empowered to allow the assessee to maintain single PLA for more than one tariff item. 3. The new Central Excise Tariff, which is based on the harmonised system contains a far more detailed scheme of classification. Having regard to the larger number of headings and sub-headings. It is felt that maintenance of separate PLAs either for each heading or sub-heading is likely to cause considerable hardship to the assessee. In view of the above, it has been decided that as a measure of facilitation whether proper officer is one and the same, the assessee may be permitted to maintain a single account (current) for all the goods manufactured by the assessee irrespective of the number of chapters/headings under which they may fall. It may be ensured that the existence of more than one proper officer (on account of functional jurisdiction) should not come in the way of assessee's request for permission to maintain consolidated PLA. Permission in such cases should be granted after complying with the statutory requirements contained in the section proviso of sub-rule (i) of Rule 173G. However, where any licensee desires to have more than one PLA in respect of items manufactured by him either with reference to chapter heading or sub-heading, he may be liberally permitted to do so. In such cases, the facility of transfer of credit from one PLA to the other, may also continue to be allowed. It is also clarified that the deposits would continue to be made by the assessees distinctly according to major and minor heads of accounts as has been the practice. Similarly the present practice of allotment of numbers to the PLAs operated by the assessee may also be continued. So far as debits are concerned they will have to be entered sub-headingwise to facilitate re-conciliation on the one hand and compilation of headingwise/sub-headingwise revenue statements on the other 4. Regarding the Accounts Code Directory for the purpose of computerisation, separate instructions have been issued by the Chief Controller of Accounts C.B.E.C.