CBEC Chief Commissioners Conference - Board seeks Action Taken Reports
CBEC has communicated the Minutes of the All-India Conference of Chief Commissioners and Directors General held on 17 - 18th July, 2013, to the Commissioners and Chief Commissioners to submit Action Taken Report by 30.09.2013.
Important Issues:
Revenue: The Finance Minister stated that the Indian currency has devalued around 13% and, therefore, this factor itself should be enough to achieve the revenue target in Customs. He urged the officers to not only achieve but to exceed the Customs Duty collections target. With reference to Central Excise target, he urged the Chief Commissioners and Commissioners to closely monitor the assessees and forge a close relationship with them. He stressed upon the need for senior officers to have regular interaction with the junior officers as well as the trade to have a close watch on the potential evasion of Central Excise Duty. He stated that the Central Excise growth of 11.9% is achievable provided all steps are taken in that direction. The Finance Minister further noted that Service Tax revenue is bound to increase in future as it has shown steady growth so far. He urged the officers to make the Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme of Service Tax a success by increasing the trade awareness through Chambers of Commerce and other associations. FM directed to carryout a massive media campaign by having a logo like VDIS to educate and encourage maximum non-filers/stop filers & wrong filers to avail the Scheme. He emphasised the need for focusing on eight major cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad and Pune to sensitize the trade regarding the scheme.
Undervaluation: A reference was made about the undervaluation and mis-declaration of the imported goods due to incomplete description and non-standard Unit Quantity Code (UQC). It has been decided to implement mandatory UQC to obviate potential for undervaluation and mis-declaration and thus ensure correct assessment. It was recommended that Directorate General of System should provide additional fields in B/Es allowing importers to give complete information in standard UQC. At present, benchmark pricing has been done for 23 commodities. It was recommended that benchmark pricing may be introduced for sensitive commodities prone to under-valuation by the Directorate General of Valuation.
Drawback: It was pointed out that in the first quarter of the year, drawback refunds have increased by 47% as compared to last year. It was observed that drawback under All Industry Rate is fixed in terms of ‘Indian Currency' and hence, drawback refund outgo will be high despite the decline in the export due to depreciation of Rupee. FM directed that All Industry Rates be re-fixed considering the devaluation of Indian currency and the revised rate should be made effective from 01.04.2013.
Pendency of Adjudication in Service Tax: It was observed that there is a high level of pendency of adjudication in Service Tax in Mumbai and Delhi Service Tax Commissionerates. It was recommended to post Commissioner (Adjudication) at Mumbai and Delhi to liquidate the said pendencies. Recommendations on administrative side include creation of 4 new Service Tax Zones and 15 new Service Tax Commissionerate and also Audit and Appeal Commissionerate.
Huge Pendency in scrutiny of Returns: It was noted that at present about 11 lakh returns, thrown up for Review & Correction in the preliminary scrutiny process, are pending for correction. In this regard, FM directed the DG (Systems) to submit a report on the reasons for the large pendency and measures to be taken for reducing the same, by system-driven scrutiny process of returns, thereby having only a small percentage of cases for detailed manual scrutiny, within a week.