Customs duty rates reduced by two percent for certain products
On the Customs front the General Exemption Notification 21/2002- Cus Dated March 1, 2002 was amended on December 7, 2008 as a part of the stimulus package through Notification 128/2008- Cus Dated 7, 2008. There is a further amendment to this Notification wherein apart from reduction of CVD from 10% to 8% for goods against S. No. 226, 228, 236, 237, 344A , 399, 404 and 433 the sunset clause for import of Naphtha for generation of electricity except for captive consumption is deleted.
The “__” confusion still remains! See our Breaking News.
All the exemptions are effective from 24.02.2009 – these notifications were made available to the public only by evening of 24.02.2009. In fact we got more than a hundred calls from frantic assessees whether the reduced rates are applicable from 24th or 25th. Why create all this confusion? Why couldn't they calmly publish these notifications and make them applicable from the next day? Now there will be a lot of litigation on the amount of duty paid yesterday. Actually many of our callers had loaded trucks waiting and they were not sure as to which rate of duty should be charged.
I was in a Central Excise Day meeting when one of these calls came and a Central Excise officer sitting next to me told me, “This caller is a confirmed evader – the rates are applicable only to those who pay duty – what difference does it make to him as to what the rate is when he will not pay the duty anyway.”
Notification No. Dated: February 24, 2009