Detailed Scrutiny of Central Excise Returns
CBEC has issued instructions regarding Detailed Scrutiny of Central Excise Returns vide Circular No. 1004/11/2015-CX Dated 21.07.2015 .The broad guidelines for detailed scrutiny of Central Excise Returns are as follows :
i) Detailed scrutiny of a minimum of 2% and maximum of 5% of the total returns received in a month shall be performed by the proper officer.
ii)Selection of assessees by the Commissionerates for detailed scrutiny shall be based on Risk score and procedure for using it. Chief Commissioners and Commissioners shall also have powers to manually select returns for detailed scrutiny using such criteria as deemed fit to further complement the list of assessees selected on the basis of risk. After selection of units centrally, month-wise detailed scrutiny plan should be laid down by the Commissionerate headquarters for each Range, conveyed to the Range and monitored for compliance.
iii)As assessee who has been selected for audit in a given financial year shall not be selected for detailed scrutiny. Further, once the return of an assessee has been selected for detailed scrutiny, the return of the assesse should not be selected again for the next 12 months for detailed scrutiny.
iv)Once an assessee has been selected for detailed scrutiny, most recent return filed by that assesse should be used for conducting the detailed scrutiny. During the course of detailed scrutiny of Central Excise returns by proper officer, the documents and records of assessees, where necessary, may be called for verification by proper officer.
v)In Composite Ranges where there are both Central Excise and Service Tax assessees, the total number of Central Excise and Service Tax returns to be taken up for detailed scrutiny shall be same as prescribed at para (i) above. The ratio of returns for Service Tax & Central Excise to be scrutinised in a composite range shall be in the ratio of the number of assessees registered as Service Tax and Central Excise assessees respectively.
