The modern world is now getting digitalized and now things have become even more convenient for us as we have learnt how to maneuver the computer in such a manner that an uphill task no longer bothers us. Central Board of Central Excise and Customs has issued a Notification numbered 18/2015 C.E. (N.T.) dated 6th July 2015 enabling the tax payers, safe and secure maintenance of electronic records which can be authenticated through a digital signature.
The salient feature of this notification is that, every assessee proposing to use digital signature shall use Class 2 or Class 3 Digital Signature Certificate duly issued by the Certifying Authority in India. Secondly, every assessee proposing to use digital signatures shall intimate the personal details such as name, e-mail id, office address and designation of the person authorized to use the digital signature certificate, name of the Certifying Authority, date of issue of Digital Certificate and validity of the digital signature etc., to the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise at least 15 days in advance. Thirdly, every assesse who has more than one factory or service tax registration, shall maintain separate electronic records for each factory or each service tax registration. Lastly, an officer of the Central Excise during an enquiry, investigation or audit, may direct an assessee to furnish printouts of the records in electronic form and invoices and may resume printouts of such records and invoices after verifying the correctness of the same in electronic format.
Verification of the digitally signed documents or invoices may be done when the assessee shall either provide access to the weblink of the company for verification or forward the digitally signed invoice or document by e-mail on requisition by the Central Excise Officer for verification.
Verification of the digitally signed document or invoice can be done in three simple steps, such as automatic pop-up of message once a digitally signed invoice is opened for the first time, by document modification history and lastly by way of access to key information from the signature panel and acceptance of signer post verification of necessary particulars.
It is therefore time to modernize and move forward. Simplification through digitally signing of the documents and invoices by way of obtaining a digital signature from an authorized authority in India, will reduce the burden of maintaining papers for years together.