CBEC will become Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech on February 1, 2018, proposed to abolish the Education Cess and Secondary and Higher Education Cess on imported goods. In its place it is proposed to impose a Social Welfare Surcharge at the rate of 10 % of the aggregate duties of Customs on imported goods to provide for social welfare schemes of the government.

However,  goods, which were so far exempt from Education Cesses on imported goods, will  continue to be so. In addition, certain specified goods, mentioned in Annexure 6 of the Budget speech, will attract the proposed Surcharge, at the rate of 3 % of the aggregate duties of customs only.

With the roll of GST, the Budget also proposed to change the name of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), according to a PIB release.

The budget also proposes to increase customs duty on mobile phones from 15 % to 20 % and on some of their parts and accessories to 15 % and on certain parts of televisions to 15 %.
Customs duty is proposed to be reduced on raw cashew from 5 % to 2.5 % to help the cashew processing industry.