Wow CBEC - What a Humongous Budget!
THE CBEC has done it - almost the impossible. The humongous work they have done is unbelievable. They have issued more than 60 notifications in Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax. They have amended 23 Sections in the Customs Act, 1 Section in the Customs Tariff Act, some 70 entries in the Customs Tariff, 4 Sections in the Central Excise Act, about 40 entries in the Central Excise Tariff apart from changes in the Service Tax Statutes and bringing in three new rules.
And all this with musical precision and symmetry, with hardly any mistakes and promoting the cause of Ease of Doing Business and Make in India.
Kudos to every officer in CBEC who made this possible and revived hopes that Government is not all about harassment and making life miserable.
Today's DDT will cover some of these measures that have not received much attention, publicity or recognition. The good proposals of CBEC would have earned brownie points for the Finance Minister, but his speechmakers for some reason shied away from disclosing those good measures in the speech. That is actually another problem with CBEC; their good work often goes unheard, while the bad deeds get more than due publicity.
The stakeholders in Indirect Taxes are certainly better off from today than they were yesterday.