TIOL-DDT 2068 · Tuesday, 19 March 2013 · story 3 of 6

INDIRECT TAXES:

CBEC functions with 94 Commissionerates of Central Excise, 35 Commissionerates of Customs and 6 Commissionerates of Service Tax. In its functioning, the Board is assisted by the following attached/subordinate offices:-

i. Directorate of Central Excise Intelligence

ii. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence

iii. Directorate of Inspection

iv. Directorate of Human Resource Development

v. National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics

vi. Directorate of Vigilance

vii. Directorate of Systems

viii. Directorate of Data Management

ix. Directorate of Audit

x. Directorate of Safeguards

xi. Directorate of Export Promotion

xii. Directorate of Service Tax

xiii. Directorate of Valuation

xiv. Directorate of Publicity and Public Relations

xv. Directorate of Logistics

xvi. Directorate of Legal Affairs

xvii. Office of Chief Departmental Representative

xviii. Central Revenues Control Laboratory

Have you heard of Help Centres?: The Outcome Budget says, "The opening of the Help Centres since July 2005 at all Customs and Central Excise Zones is a pioneering venture in public private partnership in the sovereign function of tax collection. These centres provide an institutional mechanism for small tax payers, assessees, importers, exporters and service providers in the form of guidance and education to them." Maybe the FM is not aware that all the help centres opened with much fanfare have been silently buried.

Cost of Collection: Cost of collection of Customs duty is 0.67% and for Central Excise and Service Tax, it is 0.96%. Each employee in the Department on an average is responsible for collecting a Revenue of Rs. 7.31 Crores while his salary is on an average 5.68 Lakhs.

A Department that does not spend its money: Out of the Rs. 3386.39 crores sanctioned to the Department, they could spend only Rs. 3241crores surrendering nearly 150 Crores. NACEN had an unspent amount of Rs. 2.61 crores and even the Holy Directorate of Systems could not spend about 3.9 crores.

The Department has a work force of 53,458 officers and staff, of which 30.97% are gazetted officers and the remaining are non-gazetted employees.