We are a private limited company providing business support services. Currently, invoices issued by us are manually signed by our authorised representative. The company wishes to use digital signatures on invoices raised on clients. How to go about this?
As per Rule 4C(1) of the Service Tax Rules, 1994(ST Rules) inserted in the Finance Act, 1994 with effect from March 1, 2015, any invoice, bill or challan issued under Rule 4A of the ST Rules may be authenticated by means of a digital signature. In this regard, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has specified certain conditions and procedures, through Notification No. 18/2015 dated July 6, 2015, for assessees who wish to issue invoices having digital signatures. The notification provides that only a Class 2 or Class 3 digital signature, duly issued by the Certifying Authority in India, be used by the service provider. Further, an assesse proposing to use digital signatures is required to intimate its jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise, at least 15 days in advance of the following details:
* Name, e-mail id, office address and designation of the person authorised to use the digital signature certificate;
* Name of the certifying authority;
* Date of issue and validity of the digital signature with a copy of the certificate issued by the certifying authority along with the authority’s address.
Similar intimation is also required to be given in case of any change in the details or where the assessee has already been using digital signatures.
Delhi disallows tax adjustment on post-sale discount
We are a registered dealer under Delhi Value Added Act, 2005 (DVAT Act). As a sales incentive, we have been offering post-sale discount through credit notes to our dealers/distributors and have been adjusting the same against our output VAT liability in the succeeding months. We understand that the Delhi government has recently made some amendments with respect to such adjustments under DVAT Act. Kindly throw some light on this.
As per Section 8 (1)(c) of the Delhi Value Added Tax Act, 2005 (DVAT Act), as applicable till 15 July 2015, adjustments to tax could have been made in a scenario where the previously agreed consideration for a sale is altered by an agreement with the recipient, whether due to the offer of a discount or for any other reason. Pursuant to the recent amendment in Delhi Value Added Tax (Second Amendment) Act, 2015, passed by the Legislative Assembly on 30 June 2015, the adjustment from tax payable on account of post-sale discount allowed to customers would not be available and no adjustment in the output tax payable would be required. Further, an explanation has also been inserted in Section 8(2) of the DVAT Act to further clarify the tax treatment in case of post-sale discounts. As per the explanation, ‘Credit notes issued on account of post-sale discounts or incentives will be independent of tax component and no adjustments in the output tax would be required to be made’.
Currently, the credit notes issued on account of post-sale discounts allowed to dealers/ distributors as incentives are allowed as an adjustment from the tax payable by X. However, post the above amendment, the adjustment from tax payable on account of post-sale discount allowed to customers would not be available and no adjustment in the output tax payable would be required. However, credit notes issued on account of other reasons as specified in the relevant provisions of the DVAT Act would still be allowed to be adjusted by the dealer.
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