Concessional Rate of Excise Duty on Cigars, Cheroots and Cigarillos Withdrawn
THE Central Government has omitted S. No. 11 of Notification No. dated March 1, 2008 which refers to goods of Chapter Nos. 2402 10 10, 2402 10 20, 2402 90 20 and 2402 90 90 of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 (‘cigars, cheroots and cigarillos, of tobacco and cigarillos of tobacco substitutes').
With this omission, ‘cigars, cheroots and cigarillos, of tobacco and cigarillos of tobacco substitutes' shall have an effective rate of excise duty of 16% (which is the tariff rate) except hand-rolled cheroots of ‘retail sale price' not exceeding Rs. 3 which attracts an effective rate of 10% as per Notification No. 3/2006-CE as amended by Notification No. , Dated: April 29, 2010.
It is not clear if this is a deliberate exercise of enhancing the duty rate for ‘cigars, cheroots and cigarillos of tobacco, and cigarillos of tobacco substitutes' because, there is no mention of this increase in the Finance Minister's speech while carrying out the amendments to the Finance Bill, 2010. Or is it a case of oversight and confusion resulting from Government's eagerness to provide concessional rate of excise duty and additional excise duty to hand-rolled cheroots.
Notification No. , Dated: April 29, 2010