Citrix
Connectivity Issue
The citrix is a virtualisation software
running on a server at the Data Centre enabling multiple instances of ACES
applications for departmental users to work in them. The purpose of Citrix is to enable hundreds of
departmental officers to work in ACES
with a single copy of the
software with complete security and safety of the data. On a normal working
day, it takes a long time for the citrix window to open up Central Excise or
Service Tax application. Even after
opening the application it takes a long time to navigate from one page to the
next page. This extreme slowness is most
obvious when the departmental officers carry out RnC process which requires
correction of excise return data in many pages for which officers have to
navigate from one page to another using “Next”
button. Sometimes the citrix will not open up the required application
but instead will keep crashing repeatedly. The officers after trying for about
an hour will have to give up the exercise only to retry after a few hours.
There
appears to be some pattern to the erratic response of the citrix . On all working days the citrix response is
very poor during the peak hours 11 am to 1.00 pm and 3 to 5.30 pm. Further, during the last two or three days leading to
the due date for efiling of Service tax returns and on monthly due dates for
efiling of Central Excise returns, the citrix has been considerably slower than
during other times. It therefore appears that the Server has not been able to
cope with the increased demand from the users to service their request. This
poor response of the citrix server makes it extremely difficult to carry out
official work in ACES, leading to poor implementation of ACES in the
department.
Suggested
Solution:
In the light of the above problems, the citrix
remote desktop system of working on the central excise and service tax and
other applications in ACES may be thoroughly reviewed and necessary upgradation
of the software and the attendant hardwares may be made to make the working of
Citrix smooth and hassle free. Alternately, a simpler web based working system
may be deployed in its place with better security features for data and the departmental
user. Latest security technologies may be exploited to leverage internet in a
much better way so that ACES can work faster leading to better utilisation for
both the department and the tax payers. Regular and periodical upgradation of
hardwares may be smoothly effected so that the system capabilities to cater to
the increased user request is not hampered by sudden and huge increase in volume of concurrent users accessing the
servers.
Deficiencies in ACES system ( DSR, FEF & REP
modules)
DSR
Module
a.
The Dispute Settlement Resolution
(DSR) modules provides for the departmental officers to issue Show cause
notices( SCN) through ACES in Central Excise application. The same is called as
SDR in Service Tax application.
There is a template for issue of
SCNs for the officers in the module. This template is a mere gist of
information to the assessee that an SCN has been issued to him under the
various provisions of CE Act and Rules which are mentioned therein, along with
the amount proposed to be demanded with a brief description of the cause for
the notice. Inasmuch as the SCN template is only a summary of the SCN, a copy
of the detailed SCN with annexures indicating the manner of arriving at the
duly demanded needs to be attached along with the template. This is also
absolutely necessary from the legal angle. However, while the ACES system provides for
attaching the SCN document it does not provide any hyperlink of the
attachment for the assessee to view the
copy of the SCN so attached. As a result
the assessee will only know that he has been issued with SCN but cannot view
the document.
b.
In fact any attachment made by
departmental officers in the DSR module either as attachment to SCN or as an attachment to the OiO cannot be seen by
the assessees.
c.
ACES has been designed for the
workflow under the concept of CDR .i.e Commissionerate, Division and Range. In
other words, the workflow in ACES has to either start from the assessee as by
way of registration or filing of return etc
or has to be initiated by the Range Superintendent except in cases where
the proper officer is Divisional Deputy/Asst Commissioner. The officers of
Headquarters such as Superintendents in Adjudication Section assisting the
Joint Commr / Addl.Commr / Commissioner in passing adjudication orders, cannot work online inasmuch as they do not have any roles
in ACES for carrying out their adjudication work. As a result, the order to be issued by
Commissioners, Additional and Joint Commissioners cannot be issued in ACES.
d.
The Inspectors form the backbone of
the department. The drafting of Show
cause notices are primarily the work of Inspectors. By the very design of ACES there
is no workflow for the inspectors and therefore Inspectors cannot carry out any
item of work online in ACES. This is one of the most important deficiencies of
the sytem.
REF
module
The
REFund module provides for assessees to file refund or rebate claims with the
department. The department can process these claims and then sanction the
amount claimed or reject them as the case may be. While cash refunds can be sanctioned either
fully or partially by the department there is no provision in this module to
sanction refund by way of CENVAT credit. For instance when rebate claims are filed by
the assessee with the department through ACES, on many occasions there will be a difference between
assessable value mentioned in ARE-1 on which duty is debited and the FOB value on
the shipping bill. The rebate is sanctioned for amount of duty calculated on the least of these two
values (assesseable value or FOB value). In circumstances where the FOB value
has been found to be less than the assessable value the cash refund is
sanctioned for the value equivalent to the FOB value and duty portion computed on the differential value is
given as refund of CENVAT Credit. The
REF module does not have the provision to either sanction in full or sanction
partially this kind of cenvat credit refund.
As most of the rebate claims in Large
Taxpayer Uunits involve partial sanction through cash and partial sanction
through CENVAT credit, the REF module could not be put to use due to the said
deficiency of the system by any LTUs . The same is the case in respect of all
commissionerates where rebate is sanctioned by way of partially cash sanction
and partial cenvat Credit sanction.
REP
Module
The report
module of Central Excise application contains the following reports listed
under the menu. (The following is the screenshot of the list of reports in ACES
Central Excise application)
In Central Excise
Only the
following reports can be reliably generated and used by any commissionerate from the report (REP)
module.
1. Monthly Budget
Headwise Revenue Realised Statement- Through PLA
2. Monthly Budget
Headwise Revenue Realised Statement- Through CNVT
3. Central Exicse Assesseewise
Detailed Report
However, even among these three reports, the monthly
Budget Headwise Revenue realised Statements (PLA and CENVAT) do not tally with
the Central Excise Assesseewise Detailed Report for a commissionerate for a
given period.
Every commissionerate is left on its own to generate all the required
reports. As a result all the commissionerates in the country are generating
reports manually with the help of Reports sent from the field formations
(Ranges).
In
Service Tax
In the case of Service Tax application not a single
report can be generated by any
commissionerate. In fact no
commissionerate in the country can generate any report to know or to arrive at how much Service Tax revenue has
been collected, from the returns filed by the assessees in ACES. The report
module itself does not list any report in the menu.
In this connection, it would not be out of place to
mention that the above detailed deficiencies of ACES have been present from the
time of launching of ACES in the year 2009 and have still not been resolved.
In view of the above said deficiencies in
the ACES system, the implementation of ACES
in all commissionerate has
greatly been vitiated. It is the need of the hour that the entire ACES
system is completely reviewed and revamped so as to make the best use of the
information technology for efficient tax administration.
