Service tax is the tax paid on the services being rendered by the assessee. Every person liable to pay service tax is required to register himself under the service tax. The assessee at the time of registration is required to state whether he is opting for Centralized Registration or not. Both service provider and service receiver is liable to be registered under the service tax in order to pay tax. The requirement as to registration would also extend to an Input Service Distributor who would want to distribute Cenvat credits on inputs, input services or capital goods to the unit providing taxable service or engaging in manufacturing of dutiable final products.

The procedure for registration of service tax is as follows:

1. The assessee shall make an application in Form ST 1 to the Superintendent of Central Excise in duplicate.
2. The application shall be filed within 30 days from the date of providing taxable service and shall bear the address sought to be registered.
3. The application should be filled up carefully without errors and columns and boxes which are not applicable may contain “NA” stated across them. All the taxable services provided should be mentioned on the application and there would not be separate applications for each of such taxable services.
4. The Form should be signed by the director/partner/sole proprietor as the case may be or the authorized signatory.
5. The application shall be filed along with the following documents –

• Self certified copy of PAN (where allotment is pending, copy of the application for PAN may be given).
• Copy of MOA/ AOA in case of Companies
• Copy of board resolution in case of Companies
• Copy of Lease deed/Rental agreement of the premises
• A brief technical write up on the services provided
• Registration certificate of Partnership firm
• Copy of a valid Power of Attorney where the owner/MD/Managing Partner does not file the application.

6.  Once filed, the acknowledgement for having filed the application is to be obtained on the duplicate copy for one’s own reference.

7. If the Particulars stated in the Form are correct, then the Registration Certificate would be provided within a period of 7 days. Where not so provided, the registration is deemed to have been granted.

Centralized Registration

Centralized registration is opted in case where the accounting and billing operations of the assessee are centralized in an administrative office which may be a branch or Head Office despite the services being provided from more than one location. The premises that is registered here is the one where the centralized accounting and billing is done. This decision is at the option of the tax payer and he can also opt to have multiple registrations which however may not be advisable.

The procedure would be the same as explained above with a few Exceptions –

1.  The registration in case of centralized registration would be granted by the Commissioner of Central Excise having jurisdiction over the centralized premises.

2.  The registration formality at the department’s end takes a little longer period than as stated above and the concept of deemed registration need not apply here.

The following documents are required in addition to the documents needed under the aforesaid procedure –

• Proof of address of each such premises or branches for which centralized registration is sought.
•  Proof of address of branches, new offices opened if any.