‘RET’ menu not working – Possible reasons and solutions –service tax return issues

I have written an article on how to file the service tax return online last year, and found it useful for many of our readers; people asked various questions through our comment section for clarifying their doubts. However, I cannot respond to the entire queried rose by you. Here is the interesting question raised by many of the accountinghead readers regarding RET Menu of online service tax return.

DEAR SIR

I HAVE A PROBLEM FOR FILLING THE ONLINE RETURNE. AFTER REGISTRATION WHEN I LOGIN IN ACES WEBSITE, RET & ALL THOSE FIELD ARE NOT OPEN. ONLY REG WAS SHOWN (FILL NON ASSESSEE, FILL ST-1 & CHANGE PASSWORD.
PLESE SOLVE MY THIS PROBLEM HOW CAN I FILE ON LINE RETURN

DEAR SIR,
i am getting same problem those who mentioned by mr umesh and g.c chaturvadi :-
Sir i have registered my firm in 2009 in service tax department through manual registration, and after registration i was submitted my half early return by manually to the till date but after 1/10/11 there is mandatory to e filling the service tax return.for that i was log in to ACES website and i got my password but when i am trying to filling on line return the Option is not open properly there is only one option show it is REG and i am getting the same response as mr umesh and g.c chaturvadi given below

Assessee’s are facing difficulty in filing return due to the problem of RET menu not working

Possible Reasons

Showing this, I have mailed to ACES Help desk, and they respond to my query in a couple of days later. From their reply and from my logic, I am concluding the reasons as below.

1. Most of the people confused of Registration with ACES system. The registration with ACES system is misapprehended as a statutory registration with the department.
2. The second possible reason is your browser incompatibility. You may be using an older version of your browser, which does not support drop-down menu.

Solutions

1. By Registering with ACES software you become an ACES user and not an assessee. This is just like creating a Google account; being a user of the system you will get a username and password through the mail, and you can log in to ACES website. An ACES user can only access REG Menu until the filing of ST1 and getting the registration certificate. After issuing a registration certificate you will become an assesse and can access RET Menu.  Let us examine how to become an assessee.

Existing Assessee: – Existing assessee need not register with the system; all of your data have already been migrated into the system. The system will automatically send a TPIN and password to your email. I case you are not received the TPIN & Password you can contact range officer. To know more about registration of existing assessee click here.

New assessee: – need to register with ACES system, then fill ST1 form and submit to the system, The Service tax authority will issue you Registration certificate (ST2) after verifying documents produced .To know more about new assessee’s registration click here

Return can only be filed if you are an assessee.

2.  Use the Latest versions of browser Like Internet explorer 7 or later, Mozilla Firefox 4.0 or later

Hope the above information is useful for those who are confused with Registration with ACES system and statutory registration with Department.