TIOL's Power Packed Seminar in Hyderabad

By Vijay Kumar

If you were not with us in Hyderabad on Friday, you missed a lot! We will try to bring you the action in words, but there is really no substitute for being physically present there. The affable CBEC Member Sridhar at his eloquent best, the scholarly DRI Chief, Dutt Majumder with his academic acclaim and the soft Service Tax Commissioner Gautam Bhattacharya at his persuasive best with the articulate TIOL team and the audience going great guns, it was an event that simply cannot be reported but had to be experienced. However in continuation of what we reported in the afternoon of Friday from the Seminar venue, DDT brings you a further capsule of the proceedings from our reporter at the Green Park Hotel Hyderabad.

Hotel Green Park , Hyderabad : 4/4/2008

After the illustrious speeches of the distinguished guests of the day, the lights turned on to the crux and purpose of the seminar. Mr S Dutt Majumder , Director General of the premier Intelligence organization of the country, namely DRI , stepped in with his detailed analysis on the new Customs Valuation. The eminent scholar and an authority in the subject delivered a researched analysis on the new Section 14 of the Customs Act, its genesis, evolution and explained the new Import and Export Valuation Rules with clinical precision.

DRI Chief, S Dutt Majumder, CBEC Member V Sridhar, TIOL Editor in Chief, Vijay Kumar and TIOL Managing Editor Shailendra.

Joseph Prabhakar , VAT expert and Advocate from Chennai spoke on the concept of ‘Right to use' under state VAT law and explained the nexus between service tax on ‘Supply of tangible Goods' and VAT on ‘Right to use'. He said that the overlapping of these two levies (VAT and Service Tax ) though on principle expected to be mutually exclusive, may pose problems both under VAT law and under service tax law on several services like Works Contract, Management, Repairs or Maintenance, Photography, Mandap Keepers.

Then S. Jaikumar , Advocate and an eminent writer in TIOL took all the audience for a cruise along the Budget proposals in this Finance Bill, 2008, with his power packed speech and a power point presentation.