The Reluctant Gift: The Newly Notified Refund of Cenvat Credit in Reverse Service Tax

Abstract

The CENVAT Credit Law, as it stands, is an unwholesome jumble of policy and procedure and discriminatory. And the discrimination is further compounded in the new notification No.12/2014 when it restricts the benefit to a small range of just four services as against the eleven. The procedure prescribed for filing the refund claim virtually gives blanket discretion to service tax officials to do as they please in accepting or rejecting the claim.