Sub-rules (7) and (8) to Rule 4 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994 provides for surrender of registration certificate. The Superintendent of Central Excise after ensuring that the assessee has paid all the Service Tax dues may cancel such registration certificate.

POSSIBLE REASONS FOR SURRENDER

• Assessee’s turnover is below the threshold limit.
• Assessee closing down his taxable service business.
• Death of proprietor.
• Change in the constitution of assessee.
• Assessee has taken centralized registration and hence wants to surrender his other multiple registrations pertaining to the branches.
• Assessee has shifted its office from the jurisdiction of one Division/Commissionerate to another and instead of requesting for change in the location code and premises code of the assessee, a fresh registration has been taken at the new address.
• Due to technical error in the system, the assessee has been issued multiple registrations for the same address. In that case, the additional registrations are required to be surrendered.

STEPS TO SURRENDER

• File online application for surrender by logging into aces.gov.in using existing user id and password.
• Take the print of surrender application and sign the same.
• Attach the original ST-2 and last two half yearly returns filed , if any, along with the surrender application.
• Submit the application at the concerned jurisdictional range office.
• In case the assessee has not filed ST-3 returns for the period mentioned above, then it is not necessary for him to file the fresh return for surrender purpose if his taxable turnover is below the exemption limit. He can apply for waiver of penalty for non-filing of returns. The fact of non-filing of return should be clearly mentioned in the undertaking.
• Undertaking for payment of the duty liability, interest and penalty as may be arising for the period of registration should also be submitted with the application.
• Further, documentation requirement may change as per the reasons of surrender of the application and as per the Trade notices of the respective jurisdictional authority.
• The assessee should submit the required documents with proper indexing of all enclosures. As far as possible all these documents will be verified by the Superintendent or Inspector at the time of their submission itself. In case of deficiency in submission of documents, the same shall be informed to the assessee at the time of receipt of the documents. It may be noted that if the assessee fails to submit the complete set of hard copies within 15 days of submission of on-line application, his application is liable to be rejected.
• The Superintendent shall process the application for surrender of registration and after successful cancellation of the registration, will inform the assessee.