15 October 2011
Service tax half-yearly returns need to be filed through the government automation of central excise and service tax (ACES) website(www.aces.gov.in). First you need to have a login id and password from the ACES website for new user registration in case you wish to register with the service tax authorities.
For existing assessees who are already registered with the service tax authorities, they will have to fill in an ACES Declaration form giving details such as Name of the assessee, 15 digit PAN based service tax registration no, division & group number of service tax department, Email Id, Constitution, phone number, contact person’s name.
Based on the information provided in the ACES declaration, service tax department will send you a mail with the link to ACES website on the email id provided. It will also contain a temporary password which has to be changed at the time of first login on the website.Once you have changed the temporary password, you then need to download the Service tax return filling Form ST-3 utility file. You can either download the form ST-3 or fill the form offline completely or the form ST-3 can be filled online also.