9911796707
TMI Blog2007 (10) TMI 132X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e , inter alia engaged the business of customs house agent, freight forwarders and execution of shipments either by air imports or air exports. The Commissioner of Service Tax, Bangalore initiated proceedings against the appellants by issue of Show Cause Notice dated 17-8-2005 for the period from 2000-2004 on the ground that the appellants had not declared the en tire value of the taxable services rendered by them to their clients. On conclusion of the adjudication proceedings, he confirmed service tax amounting to Rs.3,61,87,280/. He imposed a penalty of Rs.200/- per day under Section 76 of the Finance Act, 1994 and a penalty of Rs.6 crores under Section 78 of the Act. The appellants are highly aggrieved over the impugned order. Therefo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... arders. Therefore the Department has sought to tax on all the amounts collected by the appellants from their clients. He said, that is not the right approach. He urged the point that the appellants had already paid service tax on the amounts collected by them towards rendering services of Customs House Agents. They cannot be asked to pay tax on various amounts collected by them for other activities which do not fall under the category of CHA service. He said that the services provided to the clients fall under three categories. Certain services are provided by the third party and the appellants initially paid the amount to the third party on behalf of the clients and later collected the same from them. In these cases, the appellants do not ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rovided by the appellants as an agent of the clients in a customs station in relation to import or export of cargo or arrival or departure of conveyance in the Customs Station and are therefore not taxable as Customs House Agent services. 5. As regards the third categories, namely, services of Storage and Warehousing, these services for the first time came under the service tax net only with effect from 16-8-2002. Therefore for a period prior to this date, these services are not taxable. 6. Most of the charges collected by the appellants are actually reimbursable in nature. This was explained earlier. Certain charges are collected from the clients and the appellants initially incurred expenditure. Sometime it happens that the expend ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ave perused the details of the billing for their entire period under dispute. It is broadly categorized in the following way. The charges are relating to :- (1) Air exports (2) Air imports (3) Ocean exports (4) Ocean imports (5) Customs clearance (6) Logistic. For example, in respect of Air exports, for the year 2000-200 1 the Freight revenue is of the order of 8.8crores. That means, this amount represents the freight collected by the appellants towards air freight for the customers and then paid to the airliners. This amount has also been sought to be taxed under the Customs House Agent activity. This shows the adjudicating authority has not applied his mind to the details of the various activities undertaken by the appellant ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tment Fee', 'Cartage revenue', etc. The appellants have clearly explained the nature of each of these charges. The Commissioner has not discussed the nature of each of the charges and given a finding whether it relates to CHA services. The definition of CHA as given in the Finance Act, 1994, Section 65(35) reads as follows (35) "Customs House Agent" means a person licensed, temporarily Or otherwise, under the regulations made under sub-section (2) of Section 146 of the Customs Act, 1962 (52 of 1962); (105)(h) to a client, by a custom house agent in relation to the entry or departure of conveyance or the import or export of goods; Regulation 2(c) of the Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations, 2004 de fines customs house agent as un ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e are of the opinion that there is no merit in the impugned order. Moreover as contended by the learned Advocate, the major amount portion of the Billing represents freight charges and the Commissioner (Appeals) had already decided the issue in favour of the appellants. The order of the Commissioner (Appeals) has not been challenged by the Revenue. In such circumstances, we agree with the learned Advocate for the appellants that the Revenue cannot agitate over the issue which has become final. The demand is also time-barred. In view of the above observation, we are of the view that the impugned order is not sustainable. Summing up, we find that the appellants had already discharged the duty liability in respect of the Customs House Agent ac ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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